WOMEN RUSH CHURCH

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 968, 10 May 1930, Page 10

WOMEN RUSH CHURCH

WILD SCENES WITNESSED AT CHRISTENING GLADYS COOPER’S BABY Hundreds of excited women caused pandemonium at the christening of Sally, the baby daughter of Sir Neville and Lady Pearson (Miss Gladys Cooper) at Highgate, London. For an hour before the service was to begin the women had been gathering. Nearly all had children in their arms or in perambulators. They got out of control of the two policemen present and swarmed in through the gates and filled the churchyard of St. Michael's. When the Bishop of London and his chaplain arrived they found the way completely blocked. The two policemen managed to force a way for the car. which drove at a foot’s pace to the church door. A rush of women who had crowded round Sir Neville’s house in Highgate Village signalised the arrival of Sir Neville and Lady Pearson with the baby. Crowd At Font Accompanied by Lady Pearson's two elder children. Master John and Miss Joan Buckmaster, and Lady (Arthur) Pearson, they gained the church protected by the two perspiring policemen. The crowd of women then surged unchecked into the church and crowded round the font, leaving no room at all for the godparents. In a loud voice the vicar ordered all the people to sit in the pews or leave the church at once. It took the vergers ten minutes to bring them to some sort of order. Sir James Barrie, a small figure in black, had slipped through the crowd entirely unnoticed to his place as a godparent. Mother's Blue Eyes The other godparents were Sir Gerald du Maurier, Miss Maxine Elliott, for whom the Hon. Mrs. Inigo Freeman-Thomas stood proxy, and Countess Howe, for whom her daughter, Lady Georgina Curzon was proxy. To Lady Georgina fell the honour of handing the baby, a placid, darkhaired mite with her mother’s famous blue eyes, to the Bishop of London, who gave her the one name, “Sally.” The beautiful and simple service was sadly marred by the disgraceful behaviour of women who stood upon the pews, conversed in loud voices, so that twice the Bishop was obliged to stop and look admonishingly at them, dropped umbrellas and bags upon the floor and surged forward to see the baby before the service was concluded. Hurriedly Sir Neville and Lady Pearson, the baby and the godparents, walked across to their house, where a tea-party was held. In the vain hope of seeing more of the baby, many women and children stayed clinging to the house railings for an hour, until they were dispersed by the police.