N. Z. BARON

Hokitika Guardian, 7 February 1931, Page 2

N. Z. BARON

STORY OF HIS LIFE,

LORD LANGFORD’S STORY

BY FRANK RUSSELL

(Australian Press Association.)

(Received tins day at 1U a.m.) MELBOURNE, February G. After years of wanderings in many countries, rubbing shoulders with humanity in its crudest state, sharing husks, sleeping in tue cold and eating scantily, ' Clothworth Wellington Edward Thomas Rowley, seventh Baron Langford of Summcrhill, County Meath, Ireland, finds himself to-day in the tantalising position of not knowing whether he is a wealthy man. the owner of entailed estates or merely the owner of barren title. He is awaiting in Melbourne the result of inquiries sent to Ireland. He has not yet been officially informed by the estate lawyers of the death of his late uncle and his own accession to tho title. Behind the uncertainty lies the story of family jealously and dislike, rather reminiscent of un early Victorian novel, ill which the young master wanders the world, the Vietlhi of a Soilless, but vindictive uncle. I talked, ill length with the new Baron to-day. He is rather under tile average height, and eyes hidden behind dark glassas. He is a cleanshaven man of forty-six who looks younger, rather nervous and uncertain in manner,

This latest Rowley hardly embodies a' traditional swashbuckling charcteristies of the turbulent, Irish familv that was ennobled in the seventeenth century.. Appearances are deceptive, however, for he has had adventure* enough in all conscience. : His father was the younger brother of the fourth Lord Langford. He went to New Zealand many years ago as one of hopeful George Vesev Stewart. set'lenient, which was to do such great things cm the land. Like most land schemes it failed and Thomas failed with it. The. £5,000 with which this, younger son meant to fight the fates and woo fortune in tlm colonies went glimmering. Tn New Zealand he met a beautiful Irish girl, Rosetta Fletcher, daughter of a very distinguished zoologist in

Dublin. When an Irishman is in process of ruin the Irishwoman always hopes to arrest the process by marrying him, and Rosetta was traditional daughter of Erin.

The present TUron was a child of: the marriage. The .family reluctantly | . came -to the rescue of the pair and: i: Randolph TholUas W£is left tahd tO-C tftke tip business. When young Cloth-.' ~ Worthy Wellington fcdwai'd was a i lc^r , ' hid the fahlily left New Zealand, andj. ' 'returned to England where for ten-: years the youngster .remained. When, he was eleven they all returned to New Zealand, but at twenty the hoy again i left for the. land of his fathers for.edu- ! cation. He encountered the suspicions of rela- • tives, and his friendship with his uncle, : the fourth Baron, which was sincere, j seems to have been spoiled by his feud, with the second Lady Langford, who lost no opportunity, according to the story, of poisoning the uncle's mind ■; against the nephew. I Back to New Zealand went Clothworthy, until he enlisted and went to , Egypt, where he was transferred to j the artillery, led by. his love of horses and hunting gained in his youth in Ireland. .He went through two battles of the Somme, and with the Army of Occupation he went from Abbeville to Coiogne and was demobilised. .. The war had brought him a step nearer the Barony, and he decided to go to Dublin, to try his luck in Ireland. There he married,' but finding civil life dull,- tried to persuale his wife to accompany him to another country. She refused, preferring to stay in Dublin With her family. It was to Canada that this scion of the old family decided to emigrate, as so many scions had done before him. For three months he was. harvesting. He had a voice, so he went on a singing tour. With a few friends he went into Hudson Bay territory, after the elusive silver fox. “ I lived with the Eskimos under conditions I would have thought impossible at one time,” he said. “You would think it would he freezing to live in a round ice house. It's damn ' hot, but outside its many degrees below zero. You know what cold means.” He lived through a trapping season in tins' region-, getting chinchillas nnd fox. On selling skins at Montreal he felt home-sickness coming over him, so he determined to go home. I “ I had a bit of money saved from the concert tour and fur expeditions,. b’’t did not feel like paying any more j fares for travel. I heard there was a I cattle-boat going from Portland Maine to Liverpool. I applied for a job of valet to the cattle, and got it. I “At Liverpool I disembarked, and helped to get rid of the cattle and ridded myself of the smell, and then set, out for London. Once again I heard of a boat sailing for Australia, and T got a job on her as an. assistant steward. ! “From Australia I decided to keep moving, so signed on as an assistant steward on one of, the Port boats, and went through the Panama Canal to United States. T was a couple of days in .New York and Boston, and then we squared away for England once more.’’ In Australia, Lord Langford heard unofficially of hi.s uncle’s death and his own accession. He had no money be-, yond what he made bv singing and in other ways. He waited to learn the circumstances of the estate. These are even yet obscure, and so likewise are liis plans. lie is not likely to assume j

tlie use of his titile unless he has sufficient money to decorate it. Even then he is not sure what he will do.