DEATH OF BARONET.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLVIII, Issue 10984, 2 August 1927, Page 6

DEATH OF BARONET.

END 1 IN ABJECT POVERTY. WIFE'S UNHAPPY STORY. LONDON, July 20. "'I. am Lady Freeling, and I am very much alive," was the confident assertion of a dignified and vivacious woman of 75, whom a representative of the "Weekly (Dispatch" found diving in a tiny bed-sitting room at Brixton, South London, rented at 5s 6d> a week.

Lady Freeling, wife of Sir Clayton Freeling, Bart., who died in poverty in Victoria recently, now subsists on an old-age pension of 10s a week, plus 6s relief from the Lambeth Guardians.

"I am the daughter of a prosperous London baker," she said. "I, married Sir Clayton Freeling at Chelsea at a registry office in 1903. He was my third husband, as previously I was married to a West End tradesman, and then to a .publican. " I obtained a separation from Sir Clayton in 1914 on the grounds of cruelty and great brutality; when he left me starving. I accompanied him on his travels in Australia, but he broke my heart."

Sir Clayton Freeling died irw abject poverty in a shack at S'mythesdale, near Ballarat, a fortnight ago..