An Old-Time Romance.

Manawatu Herald, 13 May 1899, Page 2

An Old-Time Romance.

The death of Miss Mary Jane Janett Turner, of Blackburn, England, which occurred in March, at the" age 85, severs the last personal link (says the London " Daily Telegraph ") in an extraordinary romance in which the distinguished colonial legislator and author, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, was the principal actor. This episode involved questions of abduction, criminal prosecution, and a special act of Parliament. Her sister Ellen, the heroine, who was heiress to considerable property, was at school at Liverpool in the early part of 1827, and under the pretence that her father was very ill she was taken away to Manchester by a person representing himself as a servant. There she was joined by Wakefield, who told her her her father was ruined by the failure o a bank, but promised if she would marry him to give £60,060 to save him from imprisonment. This s]ae consented to, and the ceremony was performed at Gretna Green. Hearing of her abduction, her two uncles followed the couple to Calais, and brought her home. Wakefield was subsequently prosecuted at Lancaster, and with a brother, who was implicated, sentenced to three years' imprisonment, and in the following month the House of Lords passed a bill annulling the marriage.