WORLD’S RICHEST SOLDIER.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 January 1922, Page 3

WORLD’S RICHEST SOLDIER.

TO MARRY PRINCESS MARY.

Viscount Lascelles, whose marriage to Princess Mary takes place at the end of next month, is the eldest sou and heir of the fifth Earl of Harewood, a great Yorkshire landowner, and a descendant of one of the| oldest and proudest families in the country. He was born on September Btli., 1992. He followed the traditions of his house in adopting a military career, and passed from Eton and Sandhurst to the Grenadier Guards, liis father’s old regiment. From that he joined the diplomatic service at an honorary attache and served at the British Embassy at Rome from 1905 to 1907. In the three following years he was A.D.O. to the late Fail Grey, then Governor-General of Canada. On the outbreak of the Great War he jepoined his old regiment as a lieutenant in the 3rd Grenadier Guards, rejecting all offers of a safer position on the staff. He served in the trenches in France, and later was in command of ill’s battalion when it P aptured Maubeuge, two days before the armistice and! afterwards marched with it to Cologne. He also led the 3rd Grenadier Guards on their triumphal march through I/Ondon in March 1919, when they returned from France. He was wounded three times and gassed once, j He won the D.S.O. (1918) and bar (1918) and the French Croix de Guerre. He has been called the richest soldier

in the world. OWNS CHESTERFIELD HOUSE.

. He is not only the heir to the Harewood estates, which comprise nearly ; 30,000 acres, but in 1916 be inherited about £250,000, mostly in cash, under the will of his great uncle, Lord Clanricarde, a rather notorious Irish landlord, who was chiefly notable for bis j absence. One of Viscount Lascelles’ J first actions on returning to social life j from, the war was to purchase Chester-, field House, the famous Mayfair man- i sion fronted with tall columns, which I faces the Park- from the end of Stan hope street. The house was built by ; Isaac Ware, the famous eighteenth ceu- j tury architect, for Lord Chesterfield, j who took possession in March, 1749. j “The canonical pillars,” of which Lord Chesterfield writes in his well-known ; letters to his son, came, together with | a marble staircase, from the dismantled j seat of the Duke of Chandos. The house was bought by Lord Lascelles from the Dowager Lady Burton, who had put it at the service of the Anieri- . can mission during the war.

A GOOD SPORTSMAN. Lord Lascelles has interested himself in trade, and it is snicl he has an interest in a large type-writing factory recently erected in South Leeds. Viscount Lascelles is known ns a good sportsman. His father owns a string of racehorses which lie runs on good old-fashioned lines, entering them for notable events, and never for selling platers which are too often synonymous with “in and out running.” Lascelles rides well to hounds and is joint master of the Grampton Moor pack, one of the best known packs of foxhounds in Yorkshire.

Princess Mary followed the hounds ai Brampton Moor last season, and has been cub-hunting there in winter. She is a good horsewoman, quite as good for her sex as the Prince of Wales is for his, and much better than her younger brothers, and Viscount Lascelles doubtless had the privilege of ; piloting har. j In his salad days, Lascelles once got into trouble with the London police, j He and a friend wore one night held , up by a London policeman for kicking j their top-hats along Burlington street, j off Piccadilly. In the police court next I morning Lascelles argued that it was his own hat lie had been kicking, and he did not see why any policeman, or any number of policemen, should interfere if lie liked to make a football of his own hat. He was fined. A NOTABLE FAMILY. The Lascelles family is one of the typical old English families rooted in the soil for generations and connected |> v marriage with half the ai istoeraey of the country. It can be traced back to John de Lascelles, who was living at Hiiulkerskolfe, now Castle Howard, in Yorkshire in 1315, and as records become more ample, one Lascelles is found a colonel in the Cromwellian army, and two or three others are recorded as members of Parliament. At the beginning of the eighteenth oenturv Henry Lascelles appears as a director of the East India Company, and at its close Ward lascelles *us cr a ted first Earl of Harewood. Since then the family has taken an assured position in English social,', military and official life. A grandson of the second Lord Harewood was Sir Frank Lascelles who was British Ambassador at Berlin from 1895 to 1908, and his daughter is Lady Spring-Rise, widow el the late Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, at .ne time ambassador at Washington. Much of the Harewood wealth which will seme day come to Lord Lasceles, is derived from Rarbndoes sugar plantations. The family has been connected with that industry from th“ 18th century, and a number of estates in Bar|indues are still in their possession.

TTarewood House, near Leeds, is one of the stateliest of the stately homes in England and the guest house of kings and queens since it was built more than a century and a half ago. Among its curiosities denoting family association with the West Indies are its massive mahogany double doors, seventy-six in number, all specially made on the Harewood estates in the Barbadoes. The mansion was built in 1750 for Henry Lnscelles by John Carr. It was furnished in 1765 and 1771, both Robert Adam and Chippendale being employed on it. GREAT CHTNA COLLECTION. One of its chief glories is its wonderful collection of china, valued at over £200,000. and surpassed in England only by that at Windsor. Among the best pieces are three vases for which the father of the present earl refused an offer of £12,000 from an American. Many of the ceilings are painted by Rebecca Rose and Zucclii. There are sonic good pictures in the gallery, principally portraits by /Reynolds, IToppner, and Lawrence. A well-wooded park of 2000 acres surrounds the house, and the gardens are among the most beautiful in England. One of the sights is tlie famous Tokay vine, seventy feet long, and about twenty-four feet wide, planted in 1873.

The ruins of Harewood Castle, a Norman building, stand in the grounds. Jt is said to have been wrecked in Cromwellian times by its owner who remived its roof timbers for other buildings. The estate did not come into the family of Lascelles till some time later.