Personalities

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 422, 26 May 1904, Page 7

Personalities

ME. W. F. HICKS-BEACH. f&KHE brother of the late Chancellor :Wm ot the Exchequer, Mr. W. _F. Hicks-Beach, is * most interesting '•'"*" man. Th"e family are" descended from Sir Michael Beaoh, who flourished daring the latter half of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth. Six Michael Hicks was the bob of a prosperous merchant of Cheapside, who had oome up from Gloucester, and began life act a barrister. He whs received into the household of Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley, and became one o&yhia secretaries, a position which gave him much inflaence at Court, He had a.", witty "and joCdfre manner,' and-lent money, at interest to B toon and others, though'he never seema to have shown a usurious spirit. Sir Michael's youngesc brother, Baptist Hicke, was an even greater success in his way. He stuck to the Mercer's business, and Michael's influence brought him maeh Court patronage, so that at the sign of the White Bear in Cheapside he flourished exceedingly and was knighted by Jamas I, soon afte that monarch's aoctßdton. Like Michael* he lent mimey at interest, and he haa left it on record that King Jamie's Scottish friends were 'fajre speakers and slow performers' in the matter of repayment, so much that in the end he refused them further eredi';. It was from Baptist Hicks, who was ennobled by Charles I. under the sty la of Lord Camden, that' the Earls of Gainsborough are descended,

THE O'NEILL'S. Lord O'Neill, the boat; of the Lord Lieutenant and Lady,.Dudley at Sh*ne'a Cadtlo. waa member for County, Antrim from 1863 to 1880, and some dczen years ago was bimaelf talked of as a probable Lord-Lieutenant. Shane's Castle' ia a beautiful place, about four miles from Antrim. Lord O'Neill married the sister of Lord Dundonald, and Mb eldest eon was married at the beginning of. last year to Lady Annabel Crewe-Milnes, daughter of the Earl of Crewe, who ia now married to a daughter of .Lord Roaebery. The O'Neill's are descended from Neall the Great, was was monarch of Ireland from A D.* 379 to 4.05, and of the legendary doings of whose successors the early history of the Emerald Isle is full. In the first half of the eighteenth century" John O'Neill, of Shane's Castle, disinherited his eldest son, whose daughter married the Rsv. Arthur Chichester, and. had the posthumous satisfaction of becoming great-grandmother of the fires t -Lord O'Neill of the present creation. For. the male line failed on the death'of the third Viscount O'Neill, of 1 the'creatioa of 1795, when the estates "devolved on the Eevi William Chichester, fireat-grandsoa of the lady just referred to, who assumed the surname and arms of O'Neill, and was ■ created Baron O'Neill of* Shane's Castle... He was the f the present peer, who owns about 64,000 acres, and has some excellent Bhooting, "..&•-■

BABON ROTHSCHILD. Lord Rothschild, who has made a welcome donation to the Balkan Belief Fund, is head of the greatest financial family in the world. The house of Rothschild have been for a century the money-kings of Europe, The present Lord Rjthsohild bears the same name, Nathan Meyer, as the founder of the English branch of his honse, who was the third son of'Mayer Araschel Rothschild, the originator of the family fortunes. This remarkable man was born in 1743, the son of a curiosity dealer in the Jewish quarter of Frankfort. At the beginning of - the next century he was contracting for the conveyance of great suma of specie to the British troops in the Peninsula, for a commission of many thousands yearly. He died leaving millions to his. five sons. The founder of the English branch took up his quarters, both* for' business and dwelling purposes, in St. Swithia's-l≠ and there his grandsons carry on their operations today. The old man died in a foreign country, and his body was brought to and laid in state in the offices which -the R -fchseLilds still occupy. Baron Rothschild s place of business is distinguished among the majority of modern city houses in that it does not allow smokin any part: of the building, not even in the courtyard. . t .. A SQUIBE OF DAMES, Now out of the battles of politics, though still enjoying the diversion of writing an occasional caustic letter to the Press, Sir Henry Ho worth is in privita life a very genial person, a noted raconteur, and a squire of dames, who used often to be seen piloting members of the -fair sex round the House of Commons in his spare moments.- Sir Henry, whose father was a merchat resident in Lisbon, was b*rn in the Portuguese capital in. 1842, and began his career, like so many politicians,' by beiag called to the Bar. He hsa written much on many subjects from Mongols to mammoths, Perhaps it is the consuming ardour which he displays in politics which has made of .Sir : Henry a prematurely aged man with a pronounced stoop and a generally withered air,. He ,had repntation when he was in the House of Common's of beiwg the worst dressed member iu that assembly, although Sir H. M Stanley ran him close in this respect. His reputation for learning, however, covered his seedy garments as a cloak; after all, any m:.n may drea's badly provided he does it from choice and not from necessity.. It is told of Sir Henry Howorth that he once paid a visit, with the members of the Arcbceologiaal Institute, of which he wbb president, to an old church in Dorsetshire The vicar explained that a stone coffin had been found at a considerable depth in the chancel, but added that it must have been disturbed on a former occasion, as there were three jaw bones among the remains in it. In reply to Sir Henry he stated that there was no inscription, &n inscribed stone coffin being unusual. ' Ah,' Bighed Sir Henry, * I thought you might have found the name Howorth upon it. An ancestor with three jaws would be some excuse for my intolerable loquacity.'

SIB CHARLES NICHOLSON. Succeeding his father in the baronetcy, Sit Charles, Archibald Nicholson inherits with his title not only Totteridge Grunge, in Hants, bat considerable property in pasturage in Australia. His father, the Grand Old "Man 6£ Australia, never rehngnished interest in the great Colony for which he did so much, and which he helped thiongh bo many of the perils of infancy. The late baronet had among his contemporaries 'down under* the then Bobert Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Lord Sfaerbrooke, as he was afterwards to become upon returning home. Lowe's sarcastic utterance upon the promotion of Lord Bowton to the peerage, is famous, as were many of his more public utterances. But the late Sir Cnarles Nicholson could have a tale unfolded had he so: minded. The identical orations which bo roused the House of Commons over the Beform BUI debates hact bees used before.