By Josie Stephenson

The Petre family has been one of those staunch and constant pillars of the establishment, which has played a great part in the history of England and whose members have been in close service of the Crown for generations.

Now Lord John Petre of Ingatestone, the 18th Lord of the Manor has been appointed Her Majesty's Lord Lieutenant of Essex and took up his duties upon the retirement of Lord Braybrooke in October 2002. Lord John, who at 60 farms near Chelmsford but who can daily be found in the estate office at the family seat at Ingatestone Hall, was almost completely evenly split between two emotions by the appointment.

"The prospect is tremendously daunting, almost overwhelming," he said. "But I am immensely proud that as Lord Lieutenant I will be the Queen's representative throughout this wonderful county of ours when she has an engagement here which, for one reason or another, she is unable to attend." Lord Braybrooke and indeed the two lord lieutenants immediately before him, Andrew Lewis and John Ruggles-Brise, were marvellous in the job and will be very hard acts to follow. But I will give of my very best."

Lord Petre, handed over the family seat at Ingatestone Hall some years ago
into the safe keeping of his son and heir Dominic upon his marriage, and is now the much-loved grandfather of Alice, aged three, and 10-month-old William who will eventually be the 20th Lord Petre. But he is daily seen driving his Land Rover through Ingatestone High Street en route to the Hall and that is where he and I met up this week. I have known him for the best part of 20 years and it was something of a relief to discover that the prospect of this most recent elevation had not persuaded him to abandon a pair of farmer's corduroy trousers, which had seen better days. He thundered downstairs from his office tucked away in the Hall's former gatehouse with his usual hearty, no-nonsense greeting and I found that immensely reassuring in this ever changing world.

Every man makes his own stamp on the Lord Lieutenant's role. Lord John Petre is going to bring warmth, joviality and kindness to the job, which, by its very nature, could be stuffy and unbending. He has been a Deputy Lieutenant for Essex since 1991, which, I had assumed, had done much to break him into the job on hand. "Not really," he said, "the number of deputies a county has depends on the size of its population, and as Essex is a big county I have not been required to stand in very often. "I will be fortunate in so far as John Norris, who is the present vice lieutenant and who planned to stand down when Lord Braybrooke retired, has agreed to stay on to help ease me into the job and for that I am very grateful," he said. "There is also a superb support team at county hall without which the lord lieutenant's role would be just about impossible. "This wonderful group of people make all the arrangements for royal visits,
know everything there is to know about protocol, and generally oil the wheels. I know that I am going to be in their debt."

Ingatestone would not be Ingatestone without the Hall and the Petre family. But it originated from Torbryan on the eastern fringes of Dartmoor where they were farmers and tanners. It was the first Sir William Petre who won a scholarship in the 1500's to Exeter College, Oxford, who turned around the family fortunes after he caught the eye of Henry VIII when he was tutor to Anne Boleyn's brother. The king recognised a fine brain when he saw it and Sir William was invited to Court. He became Thomas Cromwell's assistant and eventually took over as Secretary of State. From then on, despite the fact that the Petre family has always been strongly Roman Catholic, its fortunes oddly enough, were built up on the ruins of the monasteries. Sir William's diplomatic skills were pushed to the ultimate when he held his highly political and potentially dangerous post, through the revolutionary changes of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I. His widow was the patroness of the martyr, the Blessed John Payne after whom the Chelmsford comprehensive school is named, and their son John was created a baron by James I. The fourth Lord, another William, who had distinguished himself in the civil wars, died a martyr's death in the Tower of London in 1684, accused of complicity in the Oates' Plot while Robert Edward, the ninth Baron (1742-1801), played a leading role in the struggles for Catholic
Emancipation.

The present 18th Lord Petre is an Oxford MA and is associated with an enormous list of local organisations including the Brentwood Arts Council; Brentwood Shakespeare Company; Ingatestone and Fryerning Horticultural Society, Brentwood Theatre; Ingatestone and Fryerning Angling Club; CAB (Brentwood) Appeal Fund; Ingatestone and Fryerning Historical and Archeological Society and, very recently, as patron of the Billericay based Hamelin Trust. He rowed for Trinity College but admits to having no
co-ordination when it comes to team sport and also that he has done very little in the way of travel. "I almost cannot remember when I last left Essex," he laughed. "It's been a good 10 years since I last went abroad and I have never ever been outside
of Europe."

An Essex man then through and through who now most definitely has to buy a suit.

Click here for profile of the former Lord Lieutenant

• Immensely proud: Lord John Petre of Ingatestone