ANCIENT BRIDEGROOMS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 178, 18 July 1908, Page 3

ANCIENT BRIDEGROOMS.

Social records give several instances of ancient bridegrooms. The list is headed by the Earl of Wemyss. He was born in 1818, and when about eighty-two took as his second wife the handsome, darkhaired Miss Grace Blackburn. Then the Karl of Mount Edgcumbe married at seventy-four, taking as his second spouse his cousin, Caroline Countess of Ravensworth. And the wedding of the late Marquess of Donegall, at the age of eighty, made an event of December, 10Q2.

Baronets seem set on makjng second or third marriages after they have become octogenarians. In 1!)I)0 Sir Hector Hay, at the age of eighty-live, took to wife Mrs. Fordyce, widow of Major Fordyce, of Aberdeen; and, in the same year, Sir dames Langrishe, when eightytwo years old, married, as his second wife, Miss Algitha Gooch, only sister of Sir Daniel Gooch. Also, in I'M), Sir

Robert Turing, at the age of seventynine, married Mrs. Herbert Ramus, a niece of Lord Congleton; and Sir Henry Vavasour, when well over the allotted span, married Miss Alice Codrington, a cousin of the Duke of Beaufort. Sir Henry is now nearly ninety-four, keeps well in mind and Iwdy, and makes long trips to the Continent. The late Sir Charles Tennant (father of Mrs. Asqnitli) took a second wife when, well on in the seventies, and a child was born to him when he was eighty years old.