PEERS WHO MARRIED ACTRESSES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10134, 7 December 1910, Page 7

PEERS WHO MARRIED ACTRESSES.

Viscount Torrington, who married Miss Souray, the other clay, is, says M.A.P., the twentieth British peer to marry an actress since the beginning of the Peerage. Eleven of these marriages have taken place within the last 26 years ,the remaining nine having covered a period of 124 years—from 1724 to 1847. Either, therefore, the peerage is less particular than formerly, or the fascinations of stage beauties are less resistible. The fashion was set in the eighteenth century by the Earl of Peterborough, the Duke- of Bolton, and" the Earl of Derby," who married respectively Anastasia Robinson, Lavinia Fenton, and Elizabeth Farren. In more recent times an impetus was given to such unions by the late Duke of marriage in 1817 to the actress, Louisa Fairbrothcr. Then came, in comparatively quick succession, the marriages of Baron Gardner and Julie Fortescue, the Marquis of Ailesbury and Dolly Tester, ihe Earl of Clancarty and Belle Bilkm, the Earl of Orkney and Connie Gilchrist, Baron Haldon and Lavinia Maichle, the Marquis of Headfori and Rosie Boote, I the Earl of Ros?,H-n and Anne Rob- ! inson, Baron, de Clifford and Eva Camngtou, Baron Ashburton and Frances Donnelly, the Earl Poulett and Sylvia Storey. Many of these unions were singularly happy; one of them, that of Lord Francis Hope and May Yohe, ended tragically. Among the actresses who married near relatives of peers were Kate Yaiighan, Miss Marie Tempest, Miss. Ellis Jeffreys, and Miss Isabel Jay. As a rule, stage-marrying peers have gone to the burlesque or the musical comedy theatre for their wives, while two footlight peeresses —Belle Bilton and Mav Yohe—were, closely associated Avith the music-halls.