Personalities.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 446, 3 November 1904, Page 2

Personalities.

LORD AND LADY WILTOJ*. THE Earl of Wilton, now in his forties, is the fifth holder of a title bestowed in 1801 on Sir Thomas Egerton, afterwards Baron- Grey de Wilton, and then, on the death of his sons, Viscount and Earl, with special remainder to the younger sons of his daughter, then Lady Belgrave, and afterwards Marchioness of Westminster, ancestress of the present Duke of that name. On the distaff side the family dates back to Rowland, first baronet of Egerton and Oundle, who married the sister of Thomas Lord Grey de Wilton, who was attainted in 1404. The Countess was Miss Mariota Thellusson, a daughter of Lord Rendlesham, an exceedingly charming and popular lady. • There are three other Countesses of Wilton living—lsabella, of the second Earl; Elizabeth, widow of the third Earl; and Laura, widow of the fourth Earl —a circumstance which is only paralleled in one other family in the peerage.

YETERAN EARL. The Earl of Leicester has now reached the age of 81 and is yet bright and sparkling in health. The story of his life affords a fascinating study to those who are interested in age-links. His father, the first Eail, was born 149 years ago. In the interval the British throne has been occupied by six monarch, including King Edward. The grandson of the fourth Earl of Marlborough, Lord Leicester has seen that title change hands four times. Between the first marriage of his father and his own second marriage exactly 100 years, less three months, elapsed. The first Earl married at the age of 21; the present Earl married, for the second time, in 1875. The fact is so remarkable that when it was mentioned to Queen Victoria some years ago, she could not believe it until she had seen documentary evidence in proof. The late Earl was 88 when he died; there seems every likelihood of his successor's eclipsing his record. He lives a simple, healthy life, gets about his estate like a youth, eats his lunch of bread and cheese and onions seated beneath a hedge, and himself supervises the wonderful game preserves which make Holkam famous.

VISCOUNT RIDLEY. Lord Ridley is the first Viscount of that creation, but is also the second Baron Wensleydale, a title marked in the peerage as extinct. Sir Matthew White Ridley, Home Secretary from 1895 to 1900, when he was translated to the other House, was born to the fourth Baronet by his union with the eldest daughter of the first Baron Wensleydale. Sir James Parke was an Exchequer Baron, and just about half a century ago Lord Palmerston, by way of strengthening the House of Lords, made Baron Parke a life peer. Thereon there was a great outcry, and a Committee of Privileges sat, with the result that Baron Parke, then seventy-four, all of his sons long since dead, was given a fresh patent, with the usual remainder to his heirs male. That patent was of Wensleydale. The baronetcy was given in 1756 to Matthew White, of Blagdon, the Northumberland home of the Whites for many generations, and was one of the rare cases of a special remainder in this case to the heir male of Sir Matthew White’s sister, Mrs Ridley. Her son, the second baronet, was the first of five Sir Matthew White Ridleys; of whom had a son who was created Baron Golborne in 1839, but died without issue. Lord Ridley, himself a Tory of the Tories, married a daughter of the first Lord Tweedmouth, a Radical of the Radicals : and his son, the Conservative M.P. for Stalybridge, is married to the youngest daughter of Lord Wimborne.

GOYERNOR-GEfIERAL OF CAJUDA Earl Grey, who is mentioned in succession to the Earl of Minto as GovernorGeneral of Canada, was once Administrator of Rhodesia. Whether as founder and inventor of the temperance public-house, as a powerful force amid the excitement of the Matabele rising, as the Parliamentary representative of the Northumbrian pitmen, as an apostle of social reform and the beautifying of English life, or as an Imperialist of the school of Cecil Rhodes, his downrightness and sincerity have always made him remarkable. Second son of General Charles Grey—equerry and private secretary to Queen Victoria, and, earlier in the century, private secretary to the Prince Consort- -Earl Grey is in his fifty-third year, and conies of a long line of Greys, who have all, or nearly all, earned distinction in their country's service. There were ancestors of his who were knights of Northumbria in the fourteenth century, and left substantial marks of their handiwork in Berwick and Howick and Chillingham, paying the way for that Sir Charles Grey who earned his generalship in the first American war and died Viscount Howick and Earl Grey. His son was the Mr Grey of Reform Bill days, who earned criticism by reason of the delightfully cool fashion in which he found remunerative posts for the members of his family. The present Earl is his grandson and a nephew of the third Earl, who died in 1894 at the age of ninetytwo. Twenty-seven years ago he married the daughter of Mr Robert Stayner Holford, some time member of Parliament.