To Marry an English Lord
Page 30
GARRISON, MARTHA
Daughter of William R. Garrison of New York
Married May 28, 1885
To: the Hon. Charles Ramsay, 4th son of 12th Earl of Dalhousie
Martha’s grandfather was mayor of San Francisco and had founded a bank there; her father took over the bank, then expanded into railroad interests including New York City elevated railways. The 10th Earl of Dalhousie had distinguished himself as governor general of India (1847-56).
GOELET, MAY
Daughter of Ogden Goelet of New York and Newport
Married November 10, 1903
To: Henry John Innes-Ker, 8th Duke of Roxburghe
Seats: *Floors Castle, Kelso, Roxburghshire, Scotland; Broxmouth Castle, Dunbar, Lothian, Scotland
Goelet, heir to a New York real-estate fortune, had married May Wilson (sister of-Belle Wilson [q.v.] and Grace Wilson, who married Cornelius Vanderbilt, cousin of Consuelo Vanderbilt [q.v.]). The Goelets lived much abroad and on their yacht, but summered in Newport. May was a great catch, and at one point the reprobate 9th Duke of Manchester announced his engagement to her as a way of calming his creditors. Roxburghe was a fitting match for May; a cousin of the 9th Duke of Marlborough (husband of Consuelo Vanderbilt [q.v.]), he carried Queen Alexandra’s crown at the coronation. They lived mostly in Scotland; she redecorated Floors, where the current Duke and Duchess of York became engaged, in the style that largely remains. An heir was finally born in 1913 (to the putative disappointment of Anna Breese [q.v.], married to the younger brother Lord Alastair Innes-Ker). Having inherited her mother’s box in the Diamond Horseshoe at the Metropolitan Opera House, May often visited New York after the Duke’s death in 1932.
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When the Duke of Roxburghe came to America for his wedding to May Goelet, the Goelets reportedly hired ten extra servants for him, three of them valets.
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Consuelo Marlborough thought May Goelet repressed too much of her American personality in her marriage with Roxburghe, but May was happy to play the Scottish châtelaine.
Vivien Gould in her wedding finery. She unfortunately inherited the swarthy Gould looks instead of her mother’s opulent beauty.
GORDON, MABEL
Daughter of Gen. William Washington Gordon of Georgia
Married October 31, 1898
To: the Hon. Rowland Charles Frederick Leigh, 4th son of 2nd Baron Leigh
Mabel’s father had been a captain in the Confederate Army and a general in the Spanish-American War; her grandfather, a Savannah lawyer, had helped build important southern railways. Leigh was a barrister; his older brother, the 3rd Baron Leigh, married Helene Beckwith [q.v.].
GOULD, HELEN VIVIEN
Daughter of George Jay Gould of New York
Married February 7, 1911
To: John Graham Hope de la Poer Beresford, 5th Baron Decies
Gould, son of the unscrupulous railroad baron Jay Gould, had married actress Edith Kingdon. The Goulds were never really of New York society (although Vivien’s sister Marjorie married Anthony Drexel, Jr., brother of Margaretta Drexel [q.v.]). Vivien and Beresford met in Switzerland, but he was considered ineligible until his older brother died and he came into the title. They bought medieval Leixlip Castle in Co. Kildare, Ireland, and installed Tudor-style windows and oak paneling. After Vivien died in 1931, Beresford married another American, Elizabeth Drexel, widow of Henry Symes Lehr.
GRACE, ELENA
Daughter of Michael P. Grace of London
Married December 21, 1901
To: Richard Walter John Hely-Hutchinson, 6th Earl of Donoughmore
Seat: Knocklofty Grange, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Lreland
Elena’s uncle was the Irish-born W.R. Grace, who founded the shipping firm and later became the first Catholic mayor of New York. Her father managed the Grace interests in London; one of his business partners was the 5th Lord Donoughmore (father of his son-in-law), and among his friends was Moreton Frewen (husband of Clara Jerome [q.v.]). Elena was one of three lovely daughters, inevitably known as “the Three Graces.” Her sister Margarita married John S. Phipps, brother of Amy Phipps [q.v.]. Donoughmore had a distinguished political career.
GRACE, ELISA
Daughter of Michael P. Grace of London
Married 1900
To: the Hon. Hubert Beaumont, 3rd son of 1st Baron Allendale
Elisa’s father-in-law was Wcntworth Beaumont, a Liberal party stalwart who was created Baron in 1906. In 1917 Elisa was drowned in a lake in Italy, where she had gone with the Red Cross while her husband was at the front.
GRACE, OLIVE (Mrs. Henry Kerr)
Daughter of John W. Grace of New York
Married November 24, 1909
To: Capt. the Hon. Charles Beresford Fulke Greville, later 3rd Baron Greville
Olive was a niece of Michael and W.R. Grace, and thus a cousin of Elena and Elisa Grace [q.v.]. She was said to have inherited $1 million outright when her first husband died. Greville was rumored to own some 20,000 acres; he had been ADC to the governor of Bombay and military secretary to the governor-general of Australia. They married in London, with a large reception at the Carlton House Terrace home of Mrs. Frederick Guest (Amy Phipps [q.v.]), which they had rented for a year.
The London headquarters of W.R. Grace & Co., India House, Hanover Square.
GRAHAM, MARION ALICE (Mrs. Henry Cabot Knapp)
Daughter of James Jeffrey Graham of New York
Married July 23, 1904
To: William Spencer Bateman Hanbury, Lord Bateman
Seat: Shobden Court, Shobden, Hereford
The widowed Alice had no children by Bateman; the title is extinct.
GRANT, ADELE
Daughter of David Beach Grant of New York
Married December 14, 1893
To: George Devereux de Vere Capell, 7th Earl of Essex
Seat: Cassiobury Park, Watford, Hertfordshire
Adele, having once been engaged to the Earl of Cairns (who left for Genoa to buy her a boatload of camellias but ended up marrying someone else), married the widower Essex in a huge, splashy London wedding for which Sir Arthur Sullivan played the organ. They led a fashionable life as members of the smart racing set, despite which Adele was rumored to run a laundry business in the London suburbs. Essex died in 1916, succeeded by his son from his first marriage. Cassiobury Park was torn down in 1922; its Grinling Gibbons staircase is in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
As Countess of Essex, Adele was a fixture at all the Anglo-American weddings in London.
Lord William was elated at his luck in winning Lily. Her stepson Sunny gave her away at their merry, very social wedding.
GREEN, AMY
Daughter of William Arthur Green of San Francisco
Married August 30, 1892
To: Sir James Home-Spiers, 11th Baronet
Amy and Sir James, formerly of the Royal Highlanders, had a big London wedding, covered in The New York Times.
HALE, JOSEPHINE
Daughter of Joseph P. Hale of San Francisco
Married April 30, 1890
To: the Hon. Robert John Lascelles Boyle, later 11th Earl of Cork and Orrery
Seat: Castle Martyr, County Cork, Ireland
Boyle was the second son of the 9th Earl; he succeeded to the title after his brother’s death in 1925.
HAMILTON, MARGARET
Daughter of William Hamilton of Napa, California
Married March 28, 1882
To: Sir Sidney Hedley Wdterlow, 1st Baronet
Margaret was twenty-two when she married the widowed, sixty-year-old Sir Sidney, former Lord Mayor of London and M.P. (1872-80). He died in 1906, having given Waterlow Park, Highgate, to the London County Council in 1889.
HAMMERSLEY, LILIAN PRICE
Daughter of Comm. Cicero Price of Troy, New York
Married June 29, 1888
To: George Charles Spencer-Churchill, 8th Duke of Marlborough
Seat: *Blenheim Palace,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire
Lilian, beautiful widow of wealthy New York merchant Louis Hammersley, always wore white and was famous for covering her opera box entirely in orchids. Her marriage to Marlborough, divorced by his first wife over a flagrant love affair, was widely regarded as a cynical trade of money for title. (Marlborough’s philandering continued; he had another flagrant affair with Lady Colin Campbell.) The Hammersley money re-roofed Blenheim, built an organ in the Long Library and supplied a laboratory for Marlborough’s science experiments. Marlborough died in 1892, and in 1895 Lily married Lord William de la Poer Beresford, third son of the 4th Marquess of Waterford.
HOWARD, HANNAH SARA
Daughter of Hiram Edward Howard of Buffalo, New York
Married October 15, 1878
To: the Hon. Octavius Henry Lambart, 5th son of 8th Earl of Cavan
Sara and Lambert lived in Canada. His nephew, the Hon. Lionel Lambart, married Adelaide Randolph [q.v.].
HOWELL, KATE
Daughter of Warwick Howell of South Carolina
Married 1881
To: Augustus Arthur Perceval, later 8th Earl of Egmont
Seat: Cowdray Park, Midhurst, Sussex
Kate, according to The New York Times, was a waitress; Perceval, born in New Zealand, had run away from his Royal Navy training ship to become a common sailor. A year after they married, he joined the fire brigade of Southwark, and by 1887 he was working as a janitor at the town hall. He later worked in salt mines in Chesire, then in South Africa, borrowing against his expectations of inheriting the title and 12,000-acre estate. He succeeded to the title in 1897.
JEROME, CLARA
Daughter of Leonard Jerome of New York
Married June 22, 1881
To: Moreton Frewen
Clara’s father was one of the first generation of nineteenth-century stock speculators. Frewen, of a good Sussex family, was a handsome visionary, full of brilliant ideas that never made money; among these were a cattle-ranching venture in Wyoming and forestry in Africa. Clara’s life with him was hand-to-mouth but fashionable.
JEROME, JENNIE
Daughter of Leonard Jerome of New York
Married April 15, 1874
To: Lord Randolph Churchill, 2nd son of 7th Duke of Marlborouqh
A pioneering Anglo-American match: Jennie, a true beauty, and the brilliant, aristocratic Randolph. A riveting speaker in Parliament, Randolph rose to Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. He was widely expected to become prime minister but resigned from government suddenly; he suffered from syphilis, which drove him mad and eventually killed him in 1895. Jennie was rumored to have had affairs with, among others, the Prince of Wales and the Austrian Count Kinski. She wrote plays, founded the Anglo-Saxon Review and promoted the political career of her son Winston. In 1900, she married George Cornwallis-West (Winston’s age); divorcing him in 1913, she married again (Montagu Porch, younger still) in 1918.
Jennie Jerome, one of the few “beauties” of the era who still looks beautiful to modern eyes.
Lady Leonie Leslie, costumed as Brünhilde for the Devonshire House Ball. Like many of the guests, she must have found it difficult to dance with her props.
JEROME, LEONIE
Daughter of Leonard Jerome of New York
Married October 3, 1884
To: Sir John Leslie, 2nd Baronet
Seat: Castle Leslie, Glaslough, Co. Monaghan, Ireland
Leonie was youngest of the three lovely Jerome sisters. Leslie’s family, who disapproved of her, had plenty of money and land in Ireland. Once Leslie succeeded to the title, they entertained frequently at Castle Leslie. Their eldest son was the writer Shane Leslie.
KING, MARY SANDS (“MINNA”)
Daughter of J. P. King of Sandhills, Georgia
Married June 25, 1872
To: the Hon. Henry Wodehouse, younger brother of 3rd Baron (later 1st Earl) Wodehouse, died 1873
Remarried June 26, 1880
To: Henry Paget, 4th Marquess of Anglesey
Seat: *Plas Newydd, Llanfair P.G., Isle of Anglesey, Gwynedd, Wales
The widowed Minna was Anglesey’s third wife. Anglesey died in 1898 and was succeeded by his son, “the Dancing Marquess,” who spent a fortune on jewels that he wore himself.
KIP, EDITH (Mrs. Richard McCreery)
Daughter of Col. Lawrence Kip of New York
Married December 3, 1907
To: the Hon. Henry Thomas Coventry, 3rd son of 9th Earl of Coventry
Edith, a niece of Pierre Lorillard and thus a cousin of Maude Lorillard [q.v.], was left a widow by McCreery. Coventry’s brother, Viscount Deerhurst, married Virginia Bonynge [q.v.]; another brother, the Hon. Charles Coventry, married Lily Whitehouse [q.v.].
LANGHORNE, NANCY (Mrs. Robert Shaw)
Daughter of Chiswell Dabney Langhorne of Virginia
Married May 3, 1906
To: William Waldorf Astor, later 2nd Viscount Astor
Seat: *Cliveden, near Maidenhead, Bucks
The Langhornes, though prosperous (Chiswell was worth about $1 million at his death), were not hugely rich; Nancy, one of three lovely sisters, had divorced the alcoholic Shaw. Astor’s father (of the rich American Astor clan) had migrated to England, where young William was covered with glory at both Eton and Oxford. Nancy met William on a steamer, en route to the season’s foxhunting. Astor père gave them Cliveden (now a luxury hotel) and presented her with a tiara set with the fifty-three-plus-carat Sancy diamond. Astor beeame an M.P. in 1910; when his father (created 1st Viscount) died, he had to go into the House of Lords. Nancy won his seat and became the first woman ever to sit in Parliament. Renowned for her sharp tongue, she was a rabid Christian Scientist and staunch teetotaler. She was painted and sketched several times by Sargent; a portrait still hangs at Cliveden.
LAROCHE, ELIZABETH MARIE
Daughter of William Tell LaRoche of Harrington Park, New Jersey
Married October 21, 1895
To: Sir Howland Roberts, 5th Baronet
LaRoche was a doctor and president of the College of Dentistry in New York; his wife was one of the Old New York Quackenbushes. The Robertses had two children.
LAWRANCE, FRANCES (“FANNY”)
Daughter of Francis Lawrance of New York
Married July 14, 1885
To: George William Henry Vernon, 7th Baron Vernon
Seat: *Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire
Fanny was a cousin of Florence Garner [q.v.] through her mother, Frances Garner Lawrance, sister of Thomas Garner. Vernon’s brother, the Hon. William Vernon, married Louisa Frost [q.v.]; his cousin, Viscount Harcourt, married Mary Ethel Burns [q.v.]. Sudbury, the Vernons’ seventeenth-century house with Grinling Gibbons carvings, is now owned by the National Trust.
LAWRENCE, AIMEE MARIE SUZANNE
Daughter of John Lawrence of New York
Married November 28, 1899
To: Douglas Walter Campbell, nephew of 9th Duke of Argyll
The 9th Duke had married Princess Louise, one of Queen Victoria’s daughters. Douglas and Aimee’s son Ian became the 11th Duke of Argyll in 1949 and had a stormy, well-publicized marital history.
LEE, LUCY TRACY
Daughter of William P. Lee of New York
Married October 4, 1883
To: Ernest Beckett, later 2nd Baron Grimthorpe
Seat: Westow Hall, Tork
Lucy, a very pretty woman, was painted with her two daughters by Edward Hughes, the conservative alternative to Sargent. Beckett was an M.P. and banker in Yorkshire. Lucy died in 1891.
Nancy Langhorne Astor in late middle age, when her beauty had been hardened by a kind of steely resolve.
Daisy Leiter, cover girl.
* * *
The 20th Earl of Suffolk, Daisy Letter’s son, worked in the famous Unexploded Bomb Squad in World War II, accompanied by his lady secretary and elderly chauffeur. Known as “the Holy Trinity,” the trio dismantled thirty-four bombs before, in 1941, the thirty-fifth kille
d them.
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LEITER, MARGUERITE HYDE (“DAISY”)
Daughter of Levi Leiter of Washington, D. C.
Married December 26, 1904
To: Henry Molyneux Paget Howard, 19th Earl of Suffolk and 12th Earl of Berkshire
Seat: Charlton Park, Malmesbury, Wiltshire
Leiter, partner of Marshall Field, made a fortune in Chicago real estate and moved to Washington, D.C., for superior social opportunities. Daisy visited her sister Mary Curzon (then vicereine) in India and afterward never really reentered social life in the States. Suffolk, an aide-de-camp to Lord Curzon, was notoriously broke; reporting on his engagement to Daisy, The New York Times noted that “his estate . . . in Wiltshire will be restored to the glory of its former days.” Daisy was painted by Sargent. Suffolk was killed in action in 1917; their eldest son was killed in action in 1941.
LEITER, MARY
Daughter of Levi Leiter of Washington, D. C.
Married April 22, 1895
To: the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron, then 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
Seat: Kedleston
Mary, whose charms made the Leiter girls popular despite their vulgar mother, was a belle of Washington, D.C.; attention from the Prince of Wales led to equal social success in London. After a long-distance romance and secret two-year engagement, she married Curzon, eldest son of Viscount Scarsdale. He was intelligent and ambitious; three years after the marriage, he was appointed viceroy of India, a post he filled brilliantly. Mary, as vicereine, was the second-highest-ranking woman in the British Empire (after the Queen). She grew ill in India and died in 1906. Curzon’s second wife, Grace Duggan, was also American.
LEWIS, MARGUERITE
Daughter of William Lewis of New York
Married November 21, 1906
To: Maj. the Hon. Murrough O’Brien, 2nd son of 14th Baron Inchiquin
O’Brien had a distinguished military career, earning several medals.
LIVINGSTON, ELIZABETH
Daughter of Maturin Livingston of New York and Newport