Leo was born on 3 August 1850, the son of Bernard Heinrich Leo William Bonn of Franconia, Germany, and of Lugano, Switzerland and Elizabeth Maria Schiller Schuster at Villa Bonn, in Franconia, Germany.
Leo Bernard William Bonn "The Lion", first visited England in 1870, having Bavarian and Austrian relations, he disliked the Prussian treatment of his native Franconia, following Prince Bismarck's victory over Bavaria and Austria in 1866. The mercantile interests of the late medieval House of Bonn/Bon had originated in Venice and later continued in the commercial centres of Austria, Switzerland and the German Princely States. The family were still to retain several estates in Europe; near Salzburg, in Lugano, and in Franconia, where the jewel-like classical palace of Villa Bonn was kept by the family until about 1925.
The family came to England on a permanent basis in 1870 and from Leo's marriage to Ida-Delphina "Ida" Amalie Maria Elsa Bach about 1880, Leo Bonn's sons and their descendants were born and raised as English gentleman and subsequently sent to Eton, Oxford, or Cambridge, after which they took their places as officers in the Welsh Guards. They were also to marry into aristocratic English and Scottish families, and by 1925 were linked to all the Sovereigns of their adopted country from HM King Charles II, back to William The Conqueror.
Leo Bonn, the philanthropist, soon began purchasing great estates in England; he exchanged some of the Bonn's european estates and bought a number of important stately homes in differant parts of the Great Britain. These were as follows, the first two being aquired by him directly and the subsequent estates being later acquired by his son and two grandsons over the next 135 years (1870-2005);
Wotton, nr Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire,
Newbold Revel, nr Rugby, Warwickshire,
Common Hill, Cricklade, Gloucestershire,
Marsden Manor, Cricklade, Gloucestershire,
Oaklands, St Peter's, Jersey,
Belair House, St Saviour's, Jersey,
La Maison Marett, Trinity, Jersey,
La Maison du Coin, St Ouen, Jersey.
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Newbold Revel was the ancestral home of the distinguished Roman Catholic de Revel family. Hugh de Revel was a Grand Master of The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (1258-1277); the Order which Leo Bonn's grandson, Jurat Michael Bonn, was to receive a knighthood in, seventy years later. The Bonn's later ensured the care of Newbold Revel and it's stained glass windows, (commemorating the de Revel and Mallory families and the Arthurian legend's of 'La Morte d' Arthur'), by ensuring the purchase of the house, later, by the Roman Catholic Carmelite Order. |
