by gail maccoll
BURBANK, LILLA
Daughter of John Burbank of Boston
Married 1884
To: Sir Arthur Augustus Boswell Eliott, 9th Baronet
The Scottish Sir Arthur was descended from Boswell, biographer of Samuel Johnson. His and Lilla’s son and two daughters married Americans.
BURKE, MAUD
Daughter of E.F. Burke of San Francisco
Married April 16, 1895
To: Sir Bache Cunard, 3rd Baronet
Seat: Nevill Holt, Market Harborough, Leicester
Maud’s father figure (and putative source of her dowry) was California real-estate magnate Horace Carpenticr. Jilted by Prince Poniatowski and in need of a husband as cover for her warm friendship with playwright George Moore, Maud married the man at hand. Sir Bache (of the steamship line) was a hunting squire; Maud, a bright-lights, big-city girl who tilled his drawing rooms with bohemians. She changed her name to Emerald (she hated the fact that there was no final “e” in her real name) and ran a London salon. She was a great champion of Wallis Simpson’s cause and reportedly wailed, when Edward VIII abdicated, “How could he do this to me?”
BURNS, MARY ETHEL
Daughter of Walter Hayes Burns of New York and North Mymms Park, Hatfield, Hertfordshire
Married July 1, 1899
To: Lewis Harcourt, later Sir Lewis, created Viscount Harcourt 1917
Seat: Nuneham Park, Oxford
Burns was manager of J.S. Morgan & Co. of London and son-in-law of J.P. Morgan. Harcourt’s father was Sir William Harcourt, famous politician and husband of Elizabeth Motley (Ives) [q.v.]. Nuncham’s gardens gained renown under Lady Harcourt.
Mary Burns Harcourt and her husband’s political agent, going over voter lists. Mary was one of the few heiresses to marry a Liberal.
Grace Carr and her husband shared a taste for travel; they had met in Egypt, and honeymooned in Ceylon.
BURROWS, MARY
Daughter of Ogden Hoffman Burrows of New York and Newport Married July 22, 1891
To: Somerset Frederick Gough-Calthorpe, later 8th Baron Calthorpe
Seat: Perry Hall, Birmingham
The Calthorpe family had developed Edgbaston, a posh suburb of Birmingham, earlier in the century.
CAMERON, MARTHA
Daughter of Sen. James Donald Cameron of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Married March 18, 1909
To: the Hon. Ronald Charles Lindsay, 5th son of 26th Earl of Crawford
Cameron followed in his father’s footsteps as U. S. senator and secretary of war, but was also a banker and railroad investor; his wife, twenty-four years younger, was a celebrated Washington hostess. Lindsay had a distinguished diplomatic career, culminating in the post of ambassador to the U. S. (1930-39).
CARR, ALYS (Mrs. Chauncey)
Daughter of Col. Henry Mongtomerie Carr of Louisville
Married 1911
To: Sir Cecil Bingham
Before her marriage to Bingham, Alice was well known in London as a lovely young widow. Nothing is known about Chauncey.
CARR, GRACE BRUCE
Daughter of Col. Henry Montgomerie Carr of Louisville
Married November 7, 1900
To: William Charles Wynn, 4th Baron Newborough
Seat: Bryn Llewellyn, Rhug, Corwen, Clywd, Wales
Grace and Newborough met in Egypt. They were married at the Savoy Chapel, where the bride was given away by U. S. Ambassador Choate. Newborough owned some 28,000 acres, mostly in Wales; he died on active service in World War I.
CARTER, MILDRED
Daughter of John Ridgely Carter of Baltimore
Married June 21, 1910
To: Archibald Charles Montague Brabazon Acheson, Viscount Acheson, later 5th Earl of Gosford
Seat: Gosford Castle, Markethill, Co. Armagh, Ireland
Mildred, whose handsome father was first secretary at the U. S. embassy, had a lavish London début in 1909. (The money came from her mother’s side of the family.) Acheson’s father was a courtier and friend of Edward VII; a spendthrift, he sold off the family estate library to pay racing debts and later sold the entire contents of his gloomy neo-Norman mansion in Ireland. After serving in the Boer War, Acheson worked for the Rothschild Bank. He and Mildred were divorced in 1928; his second wife was also an American.
CHAMBERLAIN, JEANNIE
Daughter of William Selah Chamberlain of Cleveland
Married September 5, 1889
To: Capt. Herbert Naylor-Leyland, later 1st Baronet
The original Self-Made Girl and a great beauty, Jeannie entranced the Prince of Wales (Princess Alexandra reportedly referred to her as “Miss Chamberpots”) and was rumored to have been his mistress after her marriage to Naylor-Leyland. She entertained lavishly at Hyde Park House in London and was the model for the popular novel Miss Bayle’s Romance. Kings Edward VII and George V were godfathers to her sons.
COLGATE, CORA
Widow of Samuel Colgate
Married December 6, 1898
To: Henry William John Byng, 4th Earl of Strafford
Seat: Wrotham Park, Barnet
Cora’s first father-in-law, English-born William Colgate, founded the soap-manufacturing company. Strafford, aged sixty-seven, had been equerry to the Prince of Wales for twenty-five years. He died five months after his marriage to Cora, and Wrotham Park (into which she had poured money) passed to his nephew. Cora was remarried (to another Englishman) in 1903.
The Carter-Acheson match was unhappy. Acheson spent three years in China in the early ’20s and did not contest the divorce charges of adultery and desertion.
OTHER DISTINGUISHED 19TH-CENTURY ENGLISHMEN WTTH AMERICAN WIVES
Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Noyes, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Bertrand Russell (3d Earl Russell), Robert Louis Stevenson.
Clandeboye, the Dufferins’ Irish home, was full of curiosities collected by the 1st Marquess, among them a stuffed grizzly bear and a mummy case.
CORBIN, LOUISE
Daughter of Daniel Corbin of New York
Married May 17, 1888
To: Capt. Robert Horace Walpole, later 5th Earl of Orford
Seat: Wolterton Hall, Erpingham, Norwich
Corbin was an important investor in western railroads. Orford, descended from England’s first prime minister, was a sportsman; he and Louise enjoyed tarpon fishing together.
CUYLER, MAY CAMPBELL
Daughter of Maj. James Wayne Cuyler of Morristown, New Jersey
Married January 4, 1893
To: Sir Philip Henry Brian Grey-Egerton, 12th Baronet
Cuyler, son of an army surgeon, had a distinguished career in the Army Corps of Engineers. May’s wedding, which took place in London before this was the general rule, received extensive New York newspaper coverage featuring lists of the jewels received as gifts (including a diamond tiara from Sir Philip’s tenants). The marriage ended in divorce in 1906; both sons, who were twins, died in action in World War I.
DAVIS, FLORENCE (“FLORA”)
Daughter of John H. Davis of New York
Married October 16, 1893
To: Lord Terence Temple-Blackwood, later 2nd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava
Seat: Clandeboye, Co. Down, Ireland
Davis was a New York banker; Lord Terence’s father was governor-general of Canada and viceroy of India. The marriage took place at the British embassy in Paris, where Lord Terence was posted as secretary. When Terence’s elder brother died in the Boer War, Flora became marchioness and châtelaine of Clandeboye. A year after her husband’s death, in 1918, she married the 4th Earl Howe, whose previous wife was a sister of Randolph Churchill and sister-in-law of Jennie Jerome [q.v.].
DOLAN, MARIE ELIZABETH
Daughter of [?] of New York
Married March 13, 1906
To: Sidney Augustus Paget
Paget’s brother Arthur married Minnie Stevens [q.v.]; his brother Almeric married Pauline Whitney [q.v.].
; DONNELLY, FRANCES EMILY
Daughter of James C. Donnelly of New York
Married February 19, 1906
To: Francis Denzil Edward Baring, 5th Baron Ashburton
Ashburton, a member of the Baring banking family, was succeeded by his son Alexander from a previous marriage. In 1924, Alexander married the Hon. Doris Harcourt, daughter of Viscount Harcourt and Mary Burns [q.v.].
DOVE, LAURA (Mrs. John Adams Blanchard)
Daughter of John Dove of Andover, Massachusetts
Married February 4, 1884
To: George Alexander Philip Haldane Duncan, later 4th Earl of Camperdown
Duncan was heir presumptive to the earldom when he married the widowed Laura. He ran a marine engine business, and they lived in Boston. Laura died in 1910, eight years before Duncan succeeded to the earldom. He diverted most of his inheritance to younger members of the family and remained in Boston, where he had many pet charities.
DREXEL, MARGARETTA
Daughter of Anthony J. Drexel of Philadelphia, Newport and London
Married June 8, 1910
To: Guy Montagu George Finch-Hatton, Viscount Maidstone, later 14th Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham
Margaretta’s father, of the banking Drexels, also held interests in real estate; her brother Anthony later married Marjorie Gould, sister of Vivien Gould [q.v.] After her 1907 début, under the aegis of the Duchess of Connaught (Queen Victoria’s daughter-in-law), Margaretta was the catch of her era, with rumored engagements to numerous impoverished Continental princes. Maidstone’s family was old and poor (Uncle Denys Finch-Hatton achieved feme as a white hunter and also as a lover of Baroness Blixen, a.k.a. Isak Dinesen). The wedding was grand, with ten bridesmaids (including Mildred Carter and Nellie Post [q.v.]) and two thousand guests at the huge Drexel mansion on Grosvenor Square. The newlyweds lived with the Drexels, and Maidstone went back to his job on the Stock Exchange; he later earned medals for active service in World War I.
DUDLEY, HELEN MAY
Daughter of James Garrard Dudley of Frankfort, Kentucky
Married May 14, 1890
To: the Hon. Amyas Stafford Northcote
Helen’s family claimed to be descended from the Earls of Dudley. Northcote was the seventh son of statesman Sir Stafford, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh. Married in Kentucky, the couple lived in Chicago, where Northcote was business manager of an English real-estate investment syndicate. His brother Oliver married Edith Fish [q.v.].
There were so many gifts to display at Margaretta Drexel’s wedding that they filled the ballroom of her parents’ house.
The Chamberlains at a society wedding. After Joseph’s death Mary married Canon William Carnegie, Chaplain of the House of Commons.
EAMES, FRANCES CAMPBELL
Daughter of Charles Eames
Married April 25, 1877
To: Alexander Penrose Gordon-Cumming
Frances’ father was former U. S. minister to Venezuela; Gordon-Cumming’s older brother was Sir William, husband of Florence Garner [q.v.]. After their marriage in Washington, he became an American citizen.
ELLISON, PATRICIA BURNLEY
Daughter of Andrew Ellison of Louisville
Married November 19, 1901
To: Sir Charles Henry Augustus Frederick Boss, 9th Baronet
Seat: Balnagowan, Parkhill, Ross-shire, Scotland
Patricia was married at home in Kentucky by a New York minister. (Ross had been previously married.) August Belmont lent the newlyweds his private railroad car for their honeymoon.
ENDICOTT, MARY
Daughter of William C. Endicott of Massachusetts
Married November 16, 1888
To: Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P., PC.
Endicott was secretary of war (1885-89). Chamberlain, a self-made millionaire from Birmingham known as “Radical Joe,” wore a monocle and always dressed elegantly with an orchid in his buttonhole; he retired from business at age thirty-eight, became mayor of Birmingham, was elected to Parliament at age forty and eventually was head of the Liberal party. Posted to Washington as ambassador extraordinary, he fell in love with Mary, thirty years his junior. Their small wedding in Washington was attended by President Cleveland. Mary was painted by Sargent.
FIELD, ETHEL
Daughter of Marshall Field of Chicago
Married May 22, 1901
To: Capt. David Beatty of the Royal Navy, later 1st Earl Beatty
Lovely, high-strung and very spoiled, Ethel was the classic rich man’s daughter. Her first husband was Arthur Tree, an American by whom she had three children (of which only one survived); they lived in England, entertaining lavishly, until Tree moved out with their son Ronnie (who later married a niece of Nancy Langhorne [q.v.]). Promptly after their divorce, Ethel married Beatty, the youngest admiral in the Royal Navy and later aide-de-camp to Edward VII (1908-10). He was created Earl Beatty for his brilliance in the World War I naval Battle of Jutland. Ethel became more and more unstable, and their marriage was not happy. Their eldest son married Americans three times.
FISH, EDITH
Daughter of Hamilton Fish of New York
Married June 6, 1883
To: the Hon. Hugh Oliver Northcote, 5th son of 1st Earl of Iddesleigh
Edith’s father, an heir (through his mother) to the great Stuyvesant real-estate fortune, was governor of New York, U. S. senator, and secretary of state under Grant. Northcote’s brother Amyas would marry Helen Dudley [q.v.]. The Northcotes lived in New York; they had a son and a daughter. Edith died in 1887.
FITZGERALD, CAROLINE
Daughter of William J. Fitzgerald, Litchfield, Connecticut
Married November 23, 1889
To: Lord Edmond George Petty Fitzmaurice, later 1st Baron Fitzmaurice
Caroline, whose mother was heiress to a New York real estate fortune, had spent a year abroad, studied Sanskrit with a Yale professor, and published a book of poems while living in London. Fitzmaurice, younger son of the 4th Marquess of Lansdowne, was a Liberal M.P. and barrister. Their marriage was annulled in 1894 in England.
FRENCH, ELIZABETH RICHARDSON
Daughter of Francis Ormonde French of New York and Newport
Married July 14, 1892
To: the Hon. Herbert Francis Eaton, later 3rd Baron Cheylesmore
Elizabeth and Eaton met when his Grenadier Guards regiment was stationed at Bermuda, where she was vacationing. They married in London, at the Guards’ Chapel, with Flora Davis and Antoinette Pinchot [q.v.] as bridesmaids. Eaton’s family had made money in the silk trade; their title was new, and they were not very fashionable. Elizabeth left England during World War II (Cheylesmore had died in 1925) and died in Newport.
FROST, JANE GRAHAM
Daughter of Gen. Daniel Marsh Frost of St. Louis
Married June 3, 1875
To: Sir Lewis William Molesworth, 11th Baronet
Seat: *Pencarrow, Washaway, Bodmin, Cornwall
Jane’s sister, Louisa Frost [q.v.], married the Hon. William Vernon. Jane was known to be a good conversationalist, clever dresser, and “among our smart married women.”
Having left Ronnie Tree for the handsome and heroic Beatty, Ethel was nevertheless unfaithful to her second husband. She was also subject to deep depressions.
* * *
“Why, money isn’t everything to an Englishman. Then are other considerations when he marries, for instance, fondness for the girl.”
THE DOWAGER DUCHESS OF ROXBURGHE, on arriving in New York for her son’s wedding
* * *
BROTHERS WHO MARRIED HEIRESSES
Hon. Charles Coventry m. Lily Whitehouse; Hon. Henry Coventry m. Edith Kip McCreery
Alexander Gordon-Cumming m. Florence Garner; Sir William Gordon-Cumming m. Frances Eames
3rd Lord Leigh m. Frances Helene Beckwith; Hon. Rowland Leigh m. Mabel Gordon
8th Duke of Marlborough m. Lily Hammersley; Lord Randolph Churchill m. Jennie Jerome
Hon. Amyas Northcote m. Helen Dudley
; Hon. Hugh Northcote m. Edith Fish
Almeric Paget in. Pauline Whitney; Arthur Paget m. Minnie Stevens; Sidney Paget m. Marie Dolan
8th Duke of Roxburghe m. May Goelet; Lord Alastair lnnes-Ker m. Anna Breese
7th Baron Vernon m. Frances Lawrance; Hon. William Vernon m. Louisa Frost
FROST, LOUISA
Daughter of Gen. Daniel Marsh Frost of St. Louis
Married April 17, 1884
To: the Hon. William Frederick Cuthbert Vernon, 2nd son of 6th Baron Vernon
William’s brother, the 7th Baron, married Fanny Lawrance [q.v.]; his cousin Sir William Harcourt married Elizabeth Motley (Ives) [q.v.].
GAMMELL, HELEN LOUISE
Daughter of Prof. William Gammell of Providence
Married 1892
To: Arthur James Herbert, knighted 1904
Herbert was British minister to Norway.
GARNER, FLORENCE
Daughter of William T. Garner of New York
Married June 10, 1891
To: Sir William Gordon-Cumming, 4th Baronet
Seats: Altyre, Forres, Morayshire, Scotland; Gordonstoun, Elgin, Morayshire
Garner, one of the biggest producers of printed cotton in the world, owned mills in New York that brought in as much as $2 million a year. In 1876 he and his wife died in a freak sailing accident offStaten Island, leaving Florence and her two sisters in the care of their aunt, Mrs. Francis Lawrance (who married offher own daughter, Fanny Lawrance [q.v.], to Lord Vernon in 1885). Florence’s sisters married French and Danish nobles. The handsome, arrogant Gordon-dimming, twenty-three years older than Florence, was a brilliant soldier and sportsman; a friend of the Prince of Wales, he owned some 40,000 acres in Scotland. After his engagement to Florence, he became embroiled in a scandal over cheating at cards and was dismissed from the army. He tried to release Florence from their engagement, but she refused; they lived quietly and very unhappily on two Scottish estates, ostracized from the society that he had loved.