Other Noble and Royal Weddings; pre-1945


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CyrilVladisla

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I'm awfully sorry, and Miss Paget seems a pretty girl, but the low on the brow head coverings that brides and others wore in the 1920's, especially with lappets hanging either side, were just foul, IMHO. The Queen Mother's was much the same. They hid the hair and if women were at all plain that look didn't help any!

On the other hand the little bridal attendant looks extremely cute!

(This couple were divorced in 1935, and Lord G married again very soon afterwards!)
 
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Extraordinary scenes really! In a pre TV, pre Internet age, on a very rainy day, hundreds of men and women struggle to catch a glimpse of an upper middleclass bride who's marrying a minor Scottish aristocrat, albeit a brother of the Duchess of York. In fact they are so determined to see her that the police are having trouble controlling them! Yet those sort of scenes happened again and again when smart Society weddings occurred.
 
I'm amazed that the cars made it through the crowd. I'm even more amazed that no one got run over!

All this for the son of an earl who had five older brothers and a snowball's chance of inheriting? And yet strangely enough, Michael's brothers and nephews either died unmarried or only produced daughters. As a result, Michael and Elizabeth's son became the 17th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.
 
People were just as geared up for a big wedding in 1928 as they are today. I would never have thought that many people would have congregated for the wedding of someone that wasn't directly in the royal family itself.

Even the rain didn't deter them and the police sure had their hands full. :D
 
The bride was a close friend of the Duchess of York and had been one of her bridesmaids. I don't know whether the Yorks were present (they probably were) but maybe the crowds were expectant of seeing them, as they were very popular royals.

Having said that, I think being in the crowd watching Society people arrive and depart for a family wedding was a form of mass entertainment in those days. I remember reading a biography of Joyce Grenfell, who was a popular British entertainer of the 1950's. She was upper middleclass and well connected, related to the Viscount Astor and his wife Margot, of Cliveden notoriety. When Joyce married in the 1920's to another upper middleclass person, the crowds turned out to gawk at that one as well, though not in such numbers as above!
 
In 1936 Ruth Runciman married the son of Lady Hopetoun in Embleton.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6OVFRdw8Xc

Lady Patricia Douglas married Count John Gerard de Forest at Brompton Oratory in 1938.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdr-efTmbqU

Lady Patricia Douglas was the daughter of Francis Archibald Douglas, 11th Marquess of Queensberry and Irene Richards.
John Gerard de Forest was the son of Maurice de Forest, Grof von Bendem.
 
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Why do all these weddings seem to take place in such terrible weather? :lol: People in the crowds waiting patiently were rugged up in thick tweed coats. When did this wedding take place? June? :lol:

Anyway, this one ended in tears, with a divorce in 1950. What a tragic family the Douglases are, at least the Queensbury branch. Lots of mental illness for generation after generation.
 
Yes, the groom was a well known amateur golf champion in the 1930's.
 
The bride was 1/2 sisters with well known artist Anne Dunn. Patricia was her parents only child, divorcing when she was 7. The Marquis married twice more, having 1 son and 2 other girls. Mother Irene married Canadian steel magnate Sir James Dunn (2nd of his 3 wives) and had Ann. Her father's Uncle was known for his affair with Oscar Wilde and his dad got Wilde convicted.
 
Lady Mary Crichton-Stuart married Edward Walker on her birthday, May 8, 1933 at Brompton Abbey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlJMXY6x7gI

Lady Mary Crichton-Stuart was the daughter of John Crichton-Stuart, 4th Marquess of Bute and Augusta Bellingham.
Edward Walker was the son of Arthur Walker.
 
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Patricia Ravenscrof and Sir Walter de Stopham Barttelot were married at Storrington, West Sussex on May 7, 1938.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xdkubTqtiw

Miss Jessamine Gordon and Michael Harmsworth November 2, 1937
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aHecThHSWs

Miss Jessamine Gordon was the daughter of Dudley Gladstone Gordon, 3rd Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair and Cécile Drummond Gordon.
Michael Harmsworth's full name was Stanley George Michael St. John Harmsworth. He was the son of Vyvyan George and Constance Harmsworth.
 
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Lady Hermione Bulwer-Lytton married Cameron Fromanteel Cobbold in 1930.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTt7i-IHhzo

Lady Hermione was Lady Margaret Hermione Millicent Bulwer-Lytton. She was the daughter of Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton.
Cameron Cobbold eventually became 1st Baron Cobbold.

In 1937 Lady Letitia Sibell Winifred Cecil and Henry Frederick Hotham were married at St. Martin's Church.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX3goZfWpTg
 
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At least it's not raining for this wedding and this one didnt end in divorce! :lol: Prince Ernst (the son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand) looks a fair bit older than his bride, though he wasn't. It actually must have been quite difficult for Marie-Therese during the war, with her father being a British diplomat. Even worse for Ernst though, who was anti-Nazi and in concentration camps until 1943 and never really recovered, dying quite young.
 
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This one's close to home for me. The bride's mother was a member of the Upcher family of Sheringham Hall, and I come from Sheringham in Norfolk. I can remember the last Upcher who lived there. He was a bachelor, an only son and no children, and so a very old family came to an end in the direct line.

This couple became the 8th Earl and Countess of Macclesfield. I believe there was some scandal or row involving the present Earl, their grandson. He was evicted from his home or something.
 
Previous ? the bridesmaids hats !!!


Sent from my iPhone using The Royals Community
 
The issue comes that the earls grandfather turned the castle into a trust. And every male member was entitled to a share of the company it formed. Unfortunately for the earl, his cousin Robert as the only male left in his branch, holds majority shares in the company. The company wanted the earl and his wife to pay rent to remain which is why they went to court. The earl and his wife lost. They have two years to move. The castle though is a shell, most not even modernized with electricity. The earl seems to actually come out the better. The actual castle which needs millions in repairs he still owns shares in even if not living there. But all its contents belong to him. All the furniture, priceless art work, antique books and more are private possessions of the earl. Only the actual building was in trust.
 
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Oh, Edinburgh in February. Lovely month! It's a wonder it wasn't snowing! And the little page boys were in shirts without jackets!
Claudia's mother (Claudia seems to have been in her mid-30's when she married) was Lady Constance Bowes Lyon, sister to the Queen Mother's father, Claude, the 14th Earl. Therefore Claudia was cousin to the Queen Mum.

This happy couple stayed together, but their only child, a son, Robin, was married three times.
 
The year and month Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in the immediate wake of the German invasion of France!

Sarah was a descendant, through a younger son, of Claude 13th Earl of Strathmore, the Queen Mother's grandfather. The groom, obviously in uniform, ended up a Lt Colonel, and the marriage endured, with children.

It's interesting, because although the wedding took place in 1940, clothes rationing was not to begin until the following year, so the bride and bridesmaids could indulge themselves in all the lace and white satin they wanted!

Within a couple of years of this wedding most British brides were going the matching skirt, jacket, pretty hat and sensible shoes route on their wedding day. Also, obviously no milling crowds to be seen. By May 1940 most ordinary people had more things to occupy them than Society weddings!
 
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'Another bride, another June...' only it's February, a month that seemed to be reasonably popular for Society weddings between the wars. Lots of crowds and press photographers out in the cold!
James was an officer in the army, and the couple went on to have seven children!

Lady Margaret was born in October 1907, which would surely make her 22 when she wed, not 21 which the title cards for this seems to suggest. Silent films were still being shown in cinemas as this clip illustrates (title cards etc). The fashions are typically very late 1920's, lots of headgear low on the brow. About eight bridesmaids, all adult, (though one sister and potential attendant had died aged twelve a couple of years before) seen parading behind.
 
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The end of November, another cold month, another huge crowd waiting for the bride and guests to appear.

Lady Mabel was perhaps shy. She had terrible posture judging by this clip and we see her scuttling hunch-backed into the church. Perhaps she didn't like Pathe being present, though it was a bit mean not to give the crowds a bit of a treat.

She was only twenty while the groom was thirty five. Quite an age gap. The marriage endured though, and they had three sons and a daughter.
 
You'd think all these people, mostly women, would have something better to do than battle police in cold weather in order to catch a glimpse of a bride none of them would probably even see again. The bride's brother Michael was in the RAF during the war and was killed in the same plane crash as the Duke of Kent.

A Roman Catholic wedding of course. The Howards have always been RC. The couple had children. All girls however, (four of them) so the next heir was a second cousin once removed who was already a peer on his own account.
 
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Perhaps it was a small treate for them, and brightened up their lives.
 
Not such bad weather in late September, and of course in a pre Internet and TV age, people did turn out in huge numbers for Society weddings. However, I'm sure royalty was the big draw card on this occasion. Even Queen Mary turned up for the reception!

Marion was an Austrian of Jewish descent who had come to Britain to escape the Nazis, in, I think, about 1938. She was quite a talented concert pianist and of course the Earl was very involved in many aspects of musical life in England.

That marriage produced three sons but was very troubled. The Earl had a son with Patricia Tuckwell, who became his second wife, before it ended, as Marion refused a divorce for a very long time. Then of course she married Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberal leader, who was later mired in controversy.
 
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