Jeremy Cartwright

A Life Done Properly

Born 11 January 1938

His life

Jeremy Cartwright was born on 11 January 1938. He farmed at Cranbrook in Kent until his late thirties, then went into his father's firm — ironmongery and hardware — and ran the hardware side of it, buying brass in India and the Far East.

All the way through, he sang — in operatic societies at Cranbrook, Battle, Bexhill and Hastings, in village halls and day centres across Kent, Sussex and Cornwall, and for the Worshipful Company of Horners, whose choir he started on 2 February 1984.

By his own account he played dozens of leading parts, at one time four shows a year, and in the busiest years gave as many as seventy-five concerts. He was Master of the Worshipful Company of Horners in 1998–99, started the Master's Charity for Sightsavers and raised about £5,000 for it, and was appointed Father of the Company in December 2019. In 2025 he marked fifty years a Horner.

This is a family archive — his photographs, his records and his voice. If you knew him, there is a place at the foot of this page to leave a memory.

His own figures

Masters of the Horners at his lunch, one a year since 1989

songs in his repertoire, written out in his own hand

concerts a year, in the busiest years

£1m

nearly, from one bequest: he was told “a bit now, or a lot later”, and chose later

1984

the year he started the Horners' choir

years a Horner, 1975 to 2025

These are his own figures, written down in his own hand.

Photographs

1938His grandfather, Philip Edward Shephard, holding him

c.1941–1942Studio portrait, as a young boy

c.1941–1943Three generations: Jeremy with his father and his grandfather

c.1940’sWith his father and his aunt Sylvia

before 1948With his great-grandmother, Florence Higgs

c.1946–1950With his father, David, Philip Jr and a cousin

1948In Jamaica, with his grandfather, Else, Madge and David

1949On Banqueter, the old horse he rode at his grandfather's place in Jamaica

c.1948–1950With his father, Joseph Osmond Cartwright

17 June 1950Vine Hall School, aged twelve

c.1946–1955David Shephard, Jeremy, Winifred and Els Shephard

c.1950–1955With a rosette at a riding competition

1958–1959Harper Adams Agricultural College

1969As Danilo in The Merry Widow, with the Hastleons

early to mid 1970’sJeremy with Robert Field and David Shephard

after June 1999Jeremy, Wendy, David and Marjan

c.1999With David Shephard and the Horners' ceremonial horn

25 December 2014Christmas Day, in the reindeer glasses

October 2023Ready for the Horners banquet

Music

Sixty years of singing, in what is left of it: seven recordings of him, the music he kept, the songs he came back to, and every show and concert we still have paper for.

The music

The shows and concerts

The book

Recognisably Himself

A Life Done Properly

Written by Giles and Jeremy Cartwright, and read back to Jeremy chapter by chapter as it was written so that he could correct it. The first bound copy was put into his hands on 10 September 2026.

If you knew Jeremy and would like to know about a copy, say so in the form below.

Leave a memory

If you knew Jeremy, his family would like to hear from you. Anything you write comes to his son Giles and goes nowhere else.