Personalities.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 503, 10 January 1906, Page 2

Personalities.

AW EARL YAWTSJfIAN, THE Earl of Dunraven, whose smart little ketoh Gariad won the King's Cup at Cowes the other day, is one of the most skilful yachtsmen in the Squadron. He knows every inoh of a yacht, and a few years ago published a fine volume, written for amateurs, on the theory and praotioe of navigation, Lord Dunraven's name is also assooiated with the struggles for the Amerioa Oup, as he twioe built and sent aoioss tha Atlantio a ohallenger, Indeed, yaohtirig is the one pastime Lord Dunraven has been able to find time for in a busy career. After Oxford he entered the Ist Life auards, but retired in 1862. Five years later he was out in Abyssinia as a war correspondent, a position he also filled during the Fcanoo-Prussian war. When he went to South Afrioa, however, he forsook the pen for the sword, and he is still a Volunteer offloer. AH IDEAiTspOFTSJWAJ*. The Earl of Coventry is acknowledged to be unsurpassed as a judge of the noble animal. He is a grand old-fashioned sportsman, and a magnificent crosscountry rider, despite his sixty-seven years. His olubs, the 'Turf and the ' Beefsteak,' indioate his proolivities, Croome Court, the family seat, is one of the most beautiful houses in Worcestershire, Lord Coventry was twioe Master of the Buokhounds in Queen Victoria's reign. He is a cosmopolitan father-in-law, his eldest son, Visoount Deerhurst, having married the stepdaughter of Mr Bonynge, of California, and his seoond daughter, Lady Anne Coventry, beooming the wife of Prinoe Viotor Duleep Singh, of the Punjab, India. The Coventrys are among the noble families who deduoe their descent from a Lord Mayor of London. In this instanoe it was John Coventry, Lord Mayor in 1416 and again in 1425, and one of the executors of Diok Whittington. His desoendaat, Thomas Coventry, a lawyer, entered the House of Lords on April 10th, 1628, havmg been Attorney-General and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. The fifth Baron Coventry was advanced to an earldom by William the Third. The present holder suoceeded his grandfather as ninth earl in 1843 when a boy fiv9 years old. THE EARL OF CHICHESTER. The Eirl, who belongs to the extremely aristocratic Pelham family, is one of the few English nobles to take Orders; he has been a curate in St. Pancras, reotor of Lambeth, and vicar of Yarmouth, He is desoended from Oliver Cromwell, and preserves some precious relios of the Protector. Tracing back his lineage still farther, we find his ancestor in very different company from that of Cromwell, He was at Poictiers, and was one of the two who oaptured the Frenoh King. Eaoh of a party of English knights had four to half-a-dozen prisoners, but John de Pelham and another made only for the King, orying, •Sir, yield, or you are dead I' And the King did yield, and gave the ancestor of the Earls of Chiohester his belt. The buckle of that belt appears in counterfeit presentment in their family crest to this day.