To Marry an English Lord
Page 31
Married August 12, 1880
To: George Cavendish-Bentinck, grandson of 3rd Duke of Portland
Livingston, from a very Old New York family with extensive Hudson River landholdings, was one of the original Patriarchs. Elizabeth’s twin sister married Ogdcn Mills, father of Beatrice Mills [q.v.]. Cavendish-Bentinck’s mother was Prudence Penelope Leslie, of the Leslie family into which Leonie Jerome [q.v.] married. (Elizabeth told the family, when Leonie’s engagement to Sir John was announced, that Leonard Jerome was a New York garbage collector.) One of the Cavendish-Bentinck daughters married Walter Burns, brother of Mary Ethel Burns [q.v.]. Elizabeth was one of the principal London contacts for American heiresses.
LORILLARD, MAUDE (Mrs. T. Suffern Taikr)
Daughter of Pierre Lorillard of Tuxedo Park, New York and Newport
Married November 8, 1902
To: the Hon. Cecil Baring, later 3rd Baron Revelstoke
Pierre Lorillard, of the tobacco fortune, was the first American ever to win the English Derby (with Iroquois, entered in the race through the courtesy of the Prince of Wales). Maude divorced Tailer, a fashionable sportsman, in 1902 in South Dakota. Cecil was a member of the Baring banking family. (His older brother John was in love with Nancy Langhorne [q.v.]; kinsman Francis Baring, later Baron Ashburton, married Frances Donnelly [q.v.]). Maude and Cecil bought Lambay Island, off the Dublin coast, and hired Edwin Lutyens to rebuild a little fort on the island into Lanibay Castle. Their son Rupert married the Hon. Flora Fermor-Hesketh, daughter of the 1st Baron Hesketh and Florence Breckinridge [q.v.].
MARTIN, CORNELIA
Daughter of Bradley Martin of New York
Married April 18, 1893
To: William George Robert Craven, 4th Earl of Craven
Seats: Hamstead House, Hamstead Marshall, Newbury, Berkshire; *Ashdown House, Ashbury, Oxfordshire; Coombe Abbey, Coventry, West Midlands
The socially ambitious Martins, from upstate New York,l rented Balmaccaan on Loch Ness beginning in 1881. Cornelia’s mother, known as something of a bully, was credited with introducing Helene Beckwith [q.v.] to Lord Leigh. The Cravens had a reputation for dissolution, based in part on the 3rd Earl’s relationship with the famous courtesan “Skittles” Walters. The 4th Earl was a cousin of Viscount Deerhurst and the Coventry brothers, who married Virginia Bonynge, Edith Kip (McCreery) and Lily Whitehouse [q.v.]. He and Cornelia met at Balmaccaan, married in New York when Cornelia was seventeen and lived in London. They had one son, who was painted by Boldini. The Earl died in 1921, of drowning; Cornelia lived until 1961.
The Earl and Countess of Craven—the child bride matured into a woman of great poise.
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“Nearly all the attachés of the various embassies at Washington are captured, before their term of office expires, by American beauties and American heiresses.”
THE MARQUESS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA (1897)
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MAY, LILIAN
Daughter of Henry May of Baltimore
Married July 25, 1903
To: William Bagot, 4th Baron Bagot
Seats: Blithfield, Rugeley, Staffordshire; Pool Park, Ruthin, Wales
May was a lawyer and member of Congress. The pretty Lilian had been traveling on the Continent for a number of years when she met Bagot, a courtier and sportsman. Thought to be a hardened bachelor, he was forty-six when they married.
MCVICKAR, KATHARINE
Daughter of William Henry McVickar of New York
Married November 5, 1879
To: John Richard Brinsley Norton, 5th Baron Grantley
Katharine was married first to Grantley’s nephew, Charles Grantley Norton. The marriage was dissolved, and she married Grantley, giving birth to his daughter five days after the wedding. She died in 1897. The Grantleys’ son, the 6th Baron, was secretary to Almeric Paget, M.P. (husband of Pauline Whitney [q.v.]).
MEIGGS, HELEN CORNELL
Daughter of John Gilbert Meiggs of New York
Married October 30, 1890
To: Sir James Rhoceric Duff M’Grigor, 3rd Baronet
M’Grigor was a banker and army agent.
MILLER, FLORENCE
Daughter of Gardner L. Miller of Providence
Married June 17, 1901
To: the Hon. William Arthur de la Poer Horsley Beresford, youngest son of 3rd Baron Decies
Florence’s father was a doctor; William’s older brother was Jack, 5th Baron Decies, who married Vivien Gould [q.v.]. The Beresfords lived in Providence and had five children. They were divorced in 1919.
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“Newport is the most English of all towns out of England. It has its daily fog, the houses remind one of an English town built a century or two since. The best people, the dwellers in the cottages, imitate the English airs, teams, turnouts, flunkies and manners.. .. If there is a British lord in the country he naturally finds his way to Newport and is more at home there than anywhere else on this continent. No sensible American will object to all this.”
D.G. CROSBY, in The Hour
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MILLS, BEATRICE
Daughter of Ogden Mills of New York, Staatsburgh and Newport
Married January 14, 1909
To: Bernard Arthur William Patrick Hastings Forbes, 8th Earl of Granard
Seat: Castle Forbes, Newtown Forbes, Co. Longford, Ireland
Ogden Mills’ father, Darius, made a fortune in California banking; his sister Elisabeth married Whitelaw Reid, father of Jean Reid [q.v.]. Beatrice, whose mother was a sister of Elizabeth Livingston [q.v.], was a twin; her sister married Henry Carnegie Phipps, brother of Amy Phipps [q.v.]. Granard was Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords, a lord-in-waiting to Edward VII, Master of the Horse for both Edward VII and George V, and a member of the Senate of the Irish Free State (1922-34). He and Beatrice rented Dartmouth House on Charles Street (now the home of the English-Speaking Union), where they gave big (reputedly dull) political receptions and entertained Edward VII during Derby Week.
MOKE, JULIA NORRIE
Daughter of George L.A. Moke of New York and London
Married July 19, 1883
To: John Rahere Paget, later 2nd Baronet
Julia’s parents had houses in London and New York. Paget’s father was created Baronet for services as Sergeant Surgeon to Queen Victoria.
MOTLEY, ELIZABETH CABOT (Mrs. Thomas Ives)
Daughter of John Lothrop Motley
Married December 2, 1876
To: Sir William George Greville Venables Vernon Harcourt, knighted 1873
Motley, U. S. minister to The Hague and to England, wrote a famous history of the Netherlands. Elizabeth was the widow of Mr. Ives of Rhode Island. Harcourt, a widower, was an M.P. and Chancellor of the Exchequer; his son Lewis, by his first marriage, married Mary Ethel Burns [q.v.] and became the 1st Viscount Harcourt.
MURPHY, ANITA THERESA
Daughter of Daniel T. Murphy of San Francisco
Married July 17, 1883
To: Sir Charles Michael Wolseley, 9th Baronet
Seat: Wolseley Hall, Stafford
Wolseley claimed direct descent from Anglo-Saxon Lords of Wiscle. He and Anita had two sons.
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At one New York dinner party, the cigarettes were rolled in $100 bills stamped with the host’s monogram in gold.
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COUSINS WHO MARRIED HEIRESSES
2nd Baron Ashburton m. Frances Donnelly; 3rd Lord Revelstoke m. Maude Lorillard
Sir John Leslie m. Leonie Jerome; George Cavendish-Bentinck m. Elizabeth Livingston
9th Duke of Marlborough m. Consuelo Vanderbilt; 8th Duke of Roxburghe m. May Goelet
Mrs. Charles Pfizer, her daughter Helen, and son Gustav in Stuttgart in 1870. The family always maintained strong European ties.
PADELFORD, FLORENCE
Daughter of Edward M. Padelford of Savannah and Baltimore
Married February 1, 1903
To: the Hon. Robert Victor Grosvenor, later 3rd Baron E
bury
Florence’s mother later married Ernest Cunard, son of William Cunard of 95 Eaton Square, London. Ebury died in 1921; Florence, in 1927.
PARKS, ALICE MARGARITA
Daughter of Rev. Leighton Parks of New York
Married November 18, 1902
To: John Nicholson Barran, later 2nd Baronet
Alice’s father was rector of St. Bartholomew’s on Park Avenue; Barran’s father had founded John Barran & Sons, merchants in Leeds, and had been an M.P. for nearly twenty years. Barran was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Asquith and M.P. (1909-18).
PFIZER, HELEN JULIA
Daughter of Charles D. Pfizer of Brooklyn and Newport
Married May 22, 1888
To: Frederick William Duncan, later 2nd Baronet
Pfizer immigrated from Germany in the early 1840s and founded the Pfizer chemical firm, which he headed for fifty-one years before handing it over to his son, Charles Jr.
PHIPPS, AMY
Daughter of Henry Phipps of Pittsburgh
Married June 28, 1905
To: Copt, the Hon. Frederick Edward Guest, 3rd son of 1st Baron Wimborne
Henry Phipps, a cobbler’s son from Philadelphia, was a lifelong business associate of Andrew Carnegie in iron and steel; when Carnegie sold to Morgan in 1901, Phipps received $50 million in stock. Caricatured by Charles Dana Gibson as “Mr. Pip,” he rented estates in England and Scotland, where he kept a piper to play bagpipes at breakfast. Amy’s brother John married Margarita Grace, sister of Elena and Elisa Grace [q.v.]; her sister Helen married Bradley Martin, Jr., brother of Cornelia Martin [q.v.]. The 1st Baron Wimborne was Ivor Guest, husband of Lady Cornelia Churchill (Lord Randolph Churchill’s sister, sister-in-law of Jennie Jerome [q.v.]). The Guests’ money was from ironworks in Wales; the Wimborne town house at 22 Arlington Street would be Evelyn Waugh’s model for Marchmain House in Brideshead Revisited. After a London wedding (the Phippses had taken Brook House in Park Lane), Amy and Frederick lived in London (Carlton House Terrace) and then Palm Beach. She became a Christian Scientist; he was an M.P. and at one time treasurer for George V’s household. Amy backed Amelia Earhart’s transatlantic flight and wanted to go along, but was prevented by her family.
PINCHOT, ANTOINETTE
Daughter of James W. Pinchot of New York and Washington, DC.
Married December 21, 1892
To: the Hon. Alan Vanden Bempde Johnstone, later knighted
The Pinchots were an Old New York family, with a house in Gramercy Park. Antoinette’s brother Gifford was first chief of the Forestry Bureau and one of the architects of the national parks system. The Johnstone wedding was attended by Mrs. Grover Cleveland, the Reids and the Vanderbilts. Johnstone was secretary to Her Majesty’s legation in Copenhagen.
POST, HELEN AGNES
Daughter of Arthur Post of New York
Married June 22, 1910
To: the Hon. Montague Charles Eliot, later 8th Earl of St. Germans
Helen was brought up largely in England, after her mother, Elizabeth Wadsworth (Post) [q.v.], married Arthur Barry, Lord Barrymore. Clare Frewen, daughter of Clara Jerome [q.v.], was a bridesmaid at her wedding; Nancy Cunard, daughter of Maud Burke [q.v.], was a flower girl. Eliot was Gentleman Usher to Edward VII (1901-08) and Groom-in-Waiting (1908-10). His court appointment was not renewed under George V, possibly because the royal couple disliked Americans.
POTTER, CLARA LUCILE
Daughter of Frederick G. Potter of New York
Married November 24, 1906
To: Robert Henry Green-Price, later 3rd Baronet
Clara’s father was a Yale graduate, lawyer and banker. Green-Price became High Sheriff of Radnorshire in 1930.
RANDOLPH, ADELAIDE
Daughter of [?] Randolph of New York
Married May 8, 1904
To: the Hon. Lionel Lambart, younger brother and heir presumptive of 10th Earl of Cavan
Adelaide’s mother, nee Edith May of Baltimore, took as her second husband William Collins Whitney, father of Pauline Whitney [q.v.]. Lambart’s brother, the 10th Earl, was commander of all British troops in Italy in World War I and received the Legion of Honour as well as the Croix de Guerre.
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At Adelaide Randolph’s coming-out party, the climax of the cotillion was the “automobile figure” in which a car loaded with favors was driven onto the ballroom floor.
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Whitelaw Reid, whose great wealth and status as American Ambassador gave his daughter, Jean, an enviable position among the American heiresses in London.
READE, MARY
Daughter of Robert Reade of New York
Married September 25, 1879
To: Col. Byron Plantagenet Cary Falkland, later 12th Viscount Falkland
The Falklands were a very old family, long broke. Mary, who did some philanthropic work, was made a Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.
REID, JEAN
Daughter of Whitelaw Reid of New York and London
Married June 22, 1908
To: the Hon. John Hubert Ward, later knighted; 2nd son of 1st Earl of Dudley
Reid, a farmer’s son from Ohio, was a brilliant journalist at the New York Tribune, where he was made managing editor before age thirty-five; becoming involved in politics (especially after his marriage to Elisabeth, daughter of Ogden Mills and aunt of Beatrice Mills [q.v.]), he was appointed special ambassador to the Court of St. James for the coronation in 1902 and ambassador in 1905. The Beids took Dorchester House, the most splendid house in London. Ward was Equerry to Edward VII and a great favorite at court; rumor had it that Edward had engineered his marriage to Jean. They lived at Dudley House in Carlton House Terrace; after Edward VII’s death, Ward stayed on as Equerry to Queen Alexandra. Jean did distinguished philanthropic work during World War II and was made Commander of the British Empire. At Elizabeth II’s coronation in June 1953, the Wards’ son Col. Edward (godson of Edward VII) was Commander of Household Cavalry & Silver Stick in Waiting; that same month, Lady Ward gave a débutante party for her granddaughter Elizabeth, which was attended by Queen Elizabeth II.
ROBINSON, AUGUSTA BEVERLY
Daughter of E. Bandolph Robinson
Married January 17, 1903
To: Commander Louis Wentworth Chetwynd, Royal Navy
Augusta was a granddaughter of John Jay; her husband was a grandson of 6th Viscount Chetwynd.
ROBINSON, GEORGIANA (“ANNA”)
Daughter of George Robinson of Minneapolis
Married March 20, 1905
To: James Francis Harry St. Clair-Erskine, 5th Earl of Rosslyn
Georgiana is listed in Debrett’s Peerage as “a member of the dramatic profession.” St. Clair-Erskine, who had obtained a Scottish divorce from his first wife in 1902, was a half-brother of Daisy, the famous Countess of Warwick; he had also been engaged to another American, Beatrice Irwin. Anna was granted an Edinburgh divorce from him in 1907.
ROGERS, CORA LELAND
Daughter of Henry Huttkston Rogers of New York and Fairhaven, Massachusetts
Married November 12, 1895
To: Urban Hanlon Broughton, posthumously created Baron Fairhaven of Lode
Rogers, who had left Fairhaven for Pennsylvania oilfields at age twenty-one, was responsible for crucial inventions such as oil pipelines; he was director of Standard Oil, with extensive-industrial interests, and a great admirer (and eventually business manager) of Mark Twain. Cora’s sister was Millicent Rogers, a famous fashion plate. Broughton, an engineer, had worked on a project in Fairhaven. After marriage, he was an M.P. (1915-18), a major contributor to the Conservative party (to which he donated the estate of Ashridge) and director of many U. S. industrial companies. He died before he could be elevated to the peerage; Cora was given the right to the title “Lady Fairhaven,” though not precedence. In 1929 she and her sons bought Runnymede, in danger of falling to developers, and donated it to the National Trust. Anglesey Abbey, where her son (effectively
the 1st Baron Fairhaven) lived, is now National Trust property.
RUSSELL, EDITH
Daughter of Samuel Hammond Russell of Boston
Married October 3, 1878
To: Sir Lyon Playfair, later 1st Baron Playfair
Edith was one of the few Boston girls to marry an Englishman. Playfair, a prominent Liberal M.P., was Deputy Speaker of the House and Lord-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria.
* * *
A lady’s maid’s responsibilities included keeping track of furs and jewelry, down to the number of pearls on each string.
* * *
FATHER-SON DUOS
Sir William Harcourt m. Elizabeth Motley Ives; 1st Viscount Harcourt m. Mary Burns
Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh m. Flora Sharon; 1st Baron Hesketh m. Florence Breckinridge
8th Duke of Manchester m. Consuelo Yznaga; 9th Duke of Manchester m. Helena Zimmerman
8th Duke of Marlborough m. Lily Hammersley; 9th Duke of Marlborough m. Consuelo Vanderbilt
7th Baron Vernon m. Frances Lawrance; 8th Baron Vernon m. Helen Traer
Flora Sharon and Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh, by San Francisco photographers.
SALISBURY, MARY WOOD
Daughter of Joseph L.K Wood of New York
Married April 28, 1905
To: the Hon. Ernest Victor Gibson, 4th son of 1st Baron Ashbourne
Mary died in September of 1905. Gibson’s second wife was also a New Yorker.
SANDS, MAY EMILY
Daughter of Benjamin Aymar Sands of New York and Southampton
Married September 19, 1908
To: the Hon. Hugh Melville Howard, 3rd son of 6th Earl of Wicklow
May’s father, son of banker Samuel Sands, was a lawyer and active in Republican politics; a trustee of Columbia University, he was also a director of a number of banks and a Fellow of the Metropolitan Museum.