The Brothers Theakstone

Anatole Marquardt Theakstone (1899 - 1980) took up his post in the Modern Languages Department of the RGS in 1925.  His brother Louis Marquardt Theakstone (c1899 – 1968) joined the Mathematics Department in 1932.

The brothers (they do not seem to have been twins) were born in St Petersburg and attended a German Gymnasium there before proceeding to Moscow University in the early years of the Soviet Union.  The shared middle name Marquardt suggests it belonged to their mother’s family.  Originally from Prussia, many Marquardts seem to have been resident in the Russian Empire.  Some were Mennonites who sought the freedom to practice their pacifist religious tradition.  Until it became dangerous to do so after the outbreak of the Great War the family probably considered itself to be part of the Russian German community.

Their father, V. E. Theakstone, was presumably of Yorkshire origin, but his family must have been resident in Russia for some generations as the brothers were “without nationality” when they arrived in Britain in around 1919.  Anatole was not naturalized until 1927.

Both enrolled at Edinburgh University and graduated with the four-year MA degree.  Anatole married Jean Buchanan Campbell at St Cuthbert’s parish church there in 1924, the year before he moved to Newcastle.  Louis also obtained a BSc, and between 1925 and 1927 was at Saltey College in Birmingham training as a teacher.  In 1930 he married Ceridwen Jones in St Asaph. 

Louis was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers (TA) as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1929 becoming Captain in 1937 when he was second in command of the RGS Officers’ Training Corps.  He joined his regiment in 1938 and in September 1941 was appointed interpreter to the British Military Mission in Russia, serving at the international conferences at Yalta and Potsdam.   Louis was remembered by his friend and colleague in Russia, Arthur Herbert Birse (Memoirs of an Interpreter 1967), as always providing willing and cheerful assistance  - especially when dealing with domestic staff.

Louis – now Colonel - returned to the RGS in 1946. He left in 1953 to be Head of Maths at Gateshead Grammar School.  His brother became Head of Modern Languages at the RGS in 1954 where he introduced the teaching of Russian into the sixth form.

F. C. Galbraith O.N., who joined the staff in 1949, and was Head of History in the 1960s, used to tell us that one of the Theakstone bothers had had a part time job in a pharmacy in St Petersburg/Petrograd and had supplied the poison which was used to assassinate Rasputin.

Louis Theakstone

Anatole and Jean in 1924 with Louis

Meeting of the Allied Foreign Ministers

The Yusopov Palace, Koreiz