Montagu Alexander Pyke
(1874-1935), Cinema chain ownerSitter in 1 portrait
Montagu Alexander Pyke ('Men of the Day. No. 1279. "Cinematographs."')
by 'Ape Junior'
chromolithograph, published in Vanity Fair 17 May 1911
NPG D45609
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Christopher Pyke
24 January 2021, 20:37
My Grandfather Montagu was born on April 1874 in London, one of five children born to Alice and Alfred a wholesale Jeweller; my paternal great grandparents.
My grandmother Genevieve was born in France in Ville D’ Anger on the 8th December 1881. My maternal great grandparents were Josephine and Lucien Primault a Lawyer.
Genevieve’s whereabouts in her early life and her coming of age, why she was in England are not in any records I have found, even in my Pandora’s tin box.
Genevieve and Montagu met in 1904 according to statements from Genevieve; the only proof of where Genevieve was living, appears on her marriage certificate in the hamlet of West Chisenbury in Wiltshire.
The couple were married at the Roman Catholic Bavarian Chapel in Westminster London in June1905 the couple had two children.
Their marriage ended in 1914 with a high profile acrimonious divorce. No family stories survive-except for Montagu’s memoirs which give little insight into his family life. Newspaper reports on Montagu’s business ventures over the years give a flavour of the entrepreneur; he appeared in the bankruptcy courts on more than one occasion during the early 1900s and was feted by the society press including appearing in Vanity Fairs Pen picture series.