Middleton family
Undifferenced Middleton arms, granted to Michael Francis Middleton, as the armigerous head of the family.[1]
Ethnicity	English
Current region	Bucklebury, West Berkshire, England
Information
Earlier spellings	Middeltone, Mideltuna, Middeltune
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Notable members	Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge Pippa Middleton James William Middleton
Connected families	the middleton family has more families like the goldsmiths

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge comes from a branch of a Middleton family. The Duchess's parents, Michael and Carole Middleton, whose wealth derives from their party supplies business, have featured in the world media in the run up to their first daughter's wedding to Prince William of Wales and its aftermath. In addition, as a result of the world exposure of the wedding ceremony, their two other children, Pippa and James, especially Pippa, have often been discussed in the press.

Background[link]

Middleton is a habitational surname originating from numerous different places throughout England and Scotland. There are over 30 places similarly named which are derived from the Old English elements: midel + tūn ("middle" + "enclosure", "settlement"); although some other places have different origins and derived from other elements, such as: micel ("large", "great"), or *(ge)mȳthel ("confluence").^[2][3] Early recorded instances of the surname are: de Mideltone in 1166, within the Eynsham Cartulary;^[4] de Midilton in 1221, within a charter to the Abbey of Arbroath;^[5] and de Midelton in 1327, within the Subsidy Rolls of Sussex.^[4]

Michael Middleton's family line came from Leeds: his grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were all solicitors in that part of England. Michael's father Peter, was an Oxford educated pilot. His paternal relations, such as the Lupton family, were active in commercial and municipal work in Leeds for several generations.^[6] Ancestors of the Middleton family include The Rev. Thomas Davis, a Church of England hymn-writer.^{[7][8][9][10]}

William Addams Reitwiesner has discovered that via Michael Middleton, the family are distantly related to Sir Thomas Fairfax and his wife Agnes Gascoine, an ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales, thus making Catherine and Prince William fifteenth cousins.^[11] This link, as well as another more distant ancestry via Sir William Gascoine and his wife, née Lady Margaret Percy, are both via Michael Middleton's grandmother, Olive Lupton, daughter of a Leeds cloth merchant Francis Lupton and his wife Harriet (née Davis), Fairfax being an ancestor of Lupton.^[12] Lady Margaret Percy in turn was a descendant of King Edward III.

The Goldsmith family of Carole Middleton came from London, although two generations before, the Harrisons were working-class labourers and miners from Sunderland and County Durham.^[13]

Carole and Michael Middleton[link]

Michael and Carole Middleton

Michael Francis Middleton was born in Leeds in 1949, and was the son of a pilot instructor / aviator. His grandfather Noel Middleton was a solicitor. Michael Middleton was educated, like his father and grandfather at Clifton College.^[14] At Clifton, all three Middleton men boarded at Brown House. Carole Elizabeth Middleton (née Goldsmith) was born on 31 January 1955 at Perivale Maternity Hospital in Ealing.^[15][16][17] The daughter of a builder, Ronald Goldsmith (1931–2003), and his wife, Dorothy Harrison (1935–2006), she grew up in a council flat in Southall, and attended the local state school.^[18]

The couple met when they both worked for British Airways; Carole as a stewardess, Michael as an officer. In 1979, Michael Middleton was promoted within BA and became a flight dispatcher at London Heathrow Airport, where he kept track of the airline's fleet on the ground. The couple were married on 21 June 1980, at the parish church of St James in Dorney, Buckinghamshire.^[19] They bought a semi-detached Victorian house in Bradfield Southend near Reading, Berkshire.^[14]

The couple have three children (two daughters and one son). Following the birth of their daughters Catherine Elizabeth (born 1982) and Philippa Charlotte (born 1983)^[20], the family briefly moved to Amman, Jordan where Michael Middleton worked from 1984 to 1987.^[21]

Their third and youngest child, a son named James William, was born in 1987.^[14] In 1987, when Kate and Philippa were at a pre-school at St Andrew's School, Pangbourne, Carole Middleton set up 'Party Pieces', a company which began by making party bags and which now sells party supplies and decorations by mail order. By 1995, the firm was being run by both parents and was moved into a range of farm buildings at Ashampstead Common. The family moved into a larger five-bedroomed house in Bucklebury, Berkshire.^[20][22][23] The business was successful, and over the space of a few years the Middletons are reported to have become very wealthy.^[24] As a result, the Middletons sent both of their daughters to the independent Downe House, a girls' boarding school in Cold Ash, and finally the public school Marlborough College, Wiltshire.

Shortly before his eldest daughter's royal marriage, Michael Middleton was granted a coat of arms. This features three acorn sprigs, one for each of his children. The oak represents "England and strength" as well as the family's home district of West Berkshire. The white chevronels symbolise peaks and mountains, said to represent the family's love of the Lake District and skiing, and the gold chevron represents Carole Middleton's maiden name of Goldsmith.^[25]

Children[link]

Catherine (left) and Pippa (right) Middleton

Their first daughter, Catherine Elizabeth "Kate" Middleton, now known as HRH The Duchess of Cambridge, was born on 9 January 1982. After finishing at Marlborough, she went to study at University of St Andrews. It was here, while living at St Salvator's Hall, that she met Prince William.^[26][27] After a long relationship, and a six month engagement, she married Prince William at Westminster Abbey on 29 April 2011.^[21]

Their second daughter, Philippa Charlotte "Pippa" Middleton (born 6 September 1983), attended the same schools as her sister and then studied English literature at the University of Edinburgh.^[28] There she shared a house with Lord Edward Innes-Ker, a son of the Duke of Roxburghe, and with Earl Percy, heir of the Duke of Northumberland.^[28] Following graduation, in 2008 she took an events management / marketing job with Table Talk, a London-based events catering company.^[29] She also writes for The Party Times, an online magazine which is an off-shoot of her parents' company.^[30]

James William Middleton, their youngest child, was born on 15 April 1987. He was educated at St Andrew's School, Pangbourne and Marlborough College. He started a degree in Environmental Resources Management at the University of Edinburgh before leaving in 2006 after one year to start his own cake-making business, the Cake Kit Company.^[31][32] Both of Catherine's siblings played a prominent role in their sister's wedding; Pippa was the maid of honour and James read the lesson.^[33][34]

Family tree[link]

Television and film portrayals[link]

William & Kate, a television movie about Catherine's romance, was released on 18 April 2011, with Catherine and William played by Camilla Luddington and Nico Evers-Swindell respectively. Other members of the Middleton family were played by: Christopher Cousins (Michael Middleton), Serena Scott Thomas (Carole Middleton), Mary Elise Hayden (Pippa Middleton), and Calvin Goldspink (James Middleton).^[35] A number of television programmes were also shown in the UK before the wedding which provided deeper insights into the couple's relationship and backgrounds, including When Kate Met William^[36] and Channel 4's Meet the Middletons.^[37]

References[link]

v t e Prince William, Duke of Cambridge Titles Duke of Cambridge Earl of Strathearn Baron Carrickfergus Family Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (wife) Charles, Prince of Wales (father) Diana, Princess of Wales (mother) Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (stepmother) Prince Harry of Wales (brother) Michael Middleton (father-in-law) Carole Middleton (mother-in-law) Pippa Middleton (sister-in-law) James Middleton (brother-in-law) Events Concert for Diana Wedding guests bridal gown 2011 Canadian Tour Miscellaneous Rosa 'Royal William' William & Kate William & Catherine: A Royal Romance Engagement announcement dress of Kate Middleton

Peter William Francis (1944–1999) was a British volcanologist specialising in the study of active volcanoes on both the Earth and other planets in our solar system. He was also renowned for his ability as a communicator, reaching the general public in a series of popular and acclaimed books on his subject.

He was born in 1944 in Mufulira, Zambia, and studied geology at both degree and PhD level at Imperial College London. His doctoral thesis was concerned with the structural geology of the Hebrides, Scotland. This was followed by fieldwork in the central Andes of northern Chile, a region with which his name would become synonymous in later years.

Recruited to the Open University in 1971, he continued his fieldwork in the Andes, and complemented this with image analysis using Landsat images which were becoming available in the early-1970's. This work enabled him and co-workers to recognise many large volcanic features in the central Andes, including debris avalanche deposits from multiple volcanic edifices. One prominent example is the almost perfectly preserved deposit at Socompa Volcano, Chile.

The imagery also revealed several larger structures on the Andean altiplano, which proved to be a series of large calderas. These included the large La Pacana and Cerro Galan calderas. Fieldwork in 1982 at Cerro Galan, in the remote northwest of Argentina, which involved the support of both UK and Argentine armed forces, was the last co-operation between the two countries before the Falkland Islands / Las Malvinas conflict later that year.

Spells at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas, and subsequently as a Visiting Professor in the Planetary Geosciences Division of the University of Hawaii, Manoa, Hawaii, were followed in 1991 by a return to the Open University, where he was Director of Teaching from 1996 and Professor of Volcanology from 1998.

His drive to promote the science of volcanology led to the publication in 1976 of his highly-successful Penguin book Volcanoes, which was followed in 1993 by Volcanoes: a Planetary perspective. These books brought volcanology to a far wider audience than previous works aimed at the scientific community.

Peter Francis died after suffering a sudden heart-attack on 30 October 1999, while in Paris with his wife Mary.

References[link]

• Francis, P.W., Hammill, M., Kretzschmar, G., and Thorpe, R.S., 1978, The Cerro Galan Caldera, North-west Argentina and its tectonic setting Nature, v. 274, p. 749-751
• Francis, P.W., Gardeweg, M., Ramirez, C.F., and Rothery, D.A., 1985, Catastrophic debris avalanche deposit of Socompa volcano, northern Chile Geology, v. 13, p. 600-603
• Francis, P.W., 1993, Volcanoes: a Planetary perspective, Oxford University Press, 443pp

Peter Francis or Pete Francis may refer to:

• Peter Francis (volcanologist) (1944–1999), British volcanologist
• Peter Francis (footballer) (born 1958), former Australian rules footballer
• Peter Francis (priest) (born 1953), former Provost of St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow
• Pete Francis Heimbold (born 1981), aka Pete Francis, former guitarist and vocalist for the American jam band Dispatch

See also[link]

• All pages with titles containing "Peter Francis"

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