LONDON’S “GRETNA GREEN"

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 31 August 1942, Page 1

LONDON’S “GRETNA GREEN"

. POPULAR MARRIAGES In the 18th century St. George s Chapel. Curzcn street, was a sort of Gretna Green in Mayfair, London. It was there that Gainsborough, the painter, married Mrs Margaret Burr, in 1746. The original chapel, built about 1729. was used by the Rev. Alexander Keith for the “performance” of marriage ceremonies without license, publication of banns or consent of parents. Although irregular, they were at that time perfectly valid and binding. The mar riages. which cost only £1 Is each, soon became so popular that the Rector of St George’s. Hanover Square, finding his own revenue seriously lessened, prose cuted a suit against Keith at Doctors' Commons. Keith was excommunicated on 27ift October. 1742. and in 1743 or 1744 he was committed to the Fleet Prison, where he died on 13th Decern ber, 1758.

Nevertheless, the clandestine marriages were continued by Keith's assist ants in the little New Chapel, which was situated ten yards from the “Great Chapel.” Other notable people were united at the Mayfair "Gretna Green." The story of two couples may be given. That of the second Duke of Chandos and Ann Wells reads like an episode out of a Hardy novel: while the marriage-in-haste romance of the Duke of Hamilton and Elizabeth Gunning, the younger of i two beautiful sisters, furnished Horace Walpole with an opportunity for one of his wittily malicious letters. On a certain day the Duke of Chandos and a friend, after dining at the Pelican Inn at Newbury, were attracted by a loud noise and were told : "A man is going to sell his wife, and they are leading her up the yard with a halter round her neck.” "We will go and see the sale," said the Duke. Out both went. The beauty of the woman bewitched the Duke, and he decided to set her free from the brutal husband. Accordingly, lie bought the ill-used wife, and on Christmas Day. 1744. "His Grace Henry Brydges, Duke of Chando.l, and Mrs Ann Jefferies, of Marylcbon. co. Midd.. and Newberv. Berks, daughter of John Wells, married by me, Alexr. Keith.” In a letter, dated 27th February. 1752, to Sir Horace Mann, Walpole writes: "About a fortnight since at an immense Assembly at my Lord Chesterfield's . . Duke Hamilton made violent love Ito Miss Gunning] at one end of the room, while he was playing at Pharaoh at the other end: that is, he saw neither the bank nor his own cards, which were at three hundred pounds each; he seen lori a thousand. Two nights afterwards lie was alone with the girl, and he found himself so impatient that he sent for a parson. The doctor refused to perform the ceremony without license or ring; the Duke swore he would send for the Archbishop—at last they were married with a ring of the bed-curtain, at half and hour after twelve at night, at Mayfair Chapel. The Scotch are enraged; the women mad that so much beauty has had its effect. ’ The clandestine weddings were finally stopped by Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act in 1754.