Person Page - 687

     Douglas James Smart was born on 20 September 1954. He was the son of Douglas Hamilton Smart and Ursula Diana Rose Seth-Smith. In 1963, Douglas and Diana Smart purchased Old Ley Court. They moved to the farm with 4 small boys and inherited 3 cows from the outgoing farmer. Over time, the family developed a milking herd mainly from a mix of Shorthorn and Ayeshire cattle.
Towards the mid 60s/early 70s, Smart’s farm were encouraged to move towards Holstein cattle to increase milk yield. Unfortunately, the Holstein’s didn’t work for the farm, they were too large, too sickly and the cows simply couldn’t fit in the farm buildings.
In the late 1970s, Smart’s farm transitioned to alternative breeds of cow, favouring the MRI. During this period, Diana began a milk round delivering unpasturised milk around Gloucester. She also skimmed some milk to sell cream and make yogurt. This delivery service then expanded to sell other farm produce including beef and eggs.
In the mid 1980s, Diana took the opportunity to take over a local cheese business and rights to a local cheese event in Gloucester. Aged 60, Diana started to build and develop her own cheese business as a retirement project. The cheese then became a key part of the business at Old Ley Court and enabled the farm to remain a small family run dairy farm. In 1986, the original cheese house was built to allow Diana and her son, Jamie to continue to build the cheese business on the farm. The team of cheese makers fluctuated but a core team continued throughout, including Jamie, Diana and Gary.
In 1994, the PDO for Single Gloucester cheese was established by Diana Smart and one other local cheese maker. So Smart’s farm bought Gloucester cattle to protect the breed and save the Single Gloucester Cheese. In 1994, Jamie sadly passed away. Diana’s third son, Rod, stepped up to help his parents with the running of the farm and making of the cheese. Over time, Rod took over making the cheese but Diana kept a keen interest in the business and was fully involved until her death in 2021.During the early 2000s, Diana spent more time focusing on building the cheese business so the local delivery round began to dwindle. In 2005, Douglas Smart passed away.
In 2010, Rod decided that he needed a larger facility to continue to make even more cheese into the future. Plans were drafted and approved for a new cheese house to be built on the farm.
In 2013, the new, larger cheese house was opened and Smart’s cheese has been housed here ever since. In this same year, Smart’s celebrated 50 years at Old Ley Court.¹ He died on 20 February 1994 at age 39.

     James Bulkeley Irens was born on 26 November 1916 in Eastbourne, Sussex, England.¹ He married Joyce Kathleen Tobin in 1946 in Surrey, England.² James and Joyce arrived in Southampton on 14 August 1949 on board the ship Willem Ruys from Indionesia. James was a tea merchant.³ James left England on 12 January 1950 on board the ship Himalaya ound for Port Said in Egypt. He was a tea merchant and gave his address in the UK as Sunny View, Effingham Lanein Copthorne.⁴ James C/o Harrisons Ramsey Pty Ltd Melbourne Victoria arrived on 23 April 1959 from Colombo in Perth on a Quantas Empire Airways Flight.⁵ James was issued a Visa on 5 June 1960 in London to travel to New York from a British Airways flight. He was working for Harrisons.⁶ He died in 1996 in Crawley, Sussex, England.⁷

     Jonathan Bentley Seth-Smith was born on 3 August 1967 in Norwich, Norfolk, England.¹ He was the son of Richard Gordon Seth-Smith and Victoria J McMillan.