Philip Naviasky (1894-1983)
Three quarter length portrait of Clara Middleton
Signed and dated 1921, oil on canvas, 98cm by 72.5cm

Clara Talbot Middleton, later Pakenham (1903-85), was the only child of William Middieton and Agnes, née Talbot. William's family were solicitors in Leeds, and he was a talented civil engineer. Agnes was descended from Kidderminster textile manufacturers, who had moved to Leeds after a family scandal, and the Cliff family of industrialists in Leeds.
Clara herself was born in Chelmsford, Essex and married Thomas Pakenham, a childhood family friend and now a Royal Naval officer, after they re-met in Lymington, Hampshire in the 1920s. They had two sons, who also joined the Royal Navy.
Clara lived according to her husband's varied career, including several years in East Asia in the 1930s when he was in the Pacific fleet. During WWII she bought the long-term family home in Hampshire, within commuting range of the Portsmouth naval base.
In the 1950s, she and her husband bought and managed the Kaptagat Arms, a hotel and country club in Kenya. They lived successively in Tangier, then near Malaga, and Menton in the French Riviera. Tom and Clara retired to Jersey in the early 1970s.



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