GAPS IN THE PEERAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 19, 22 January 1916, Page 18

GAPS IN THE PEERAGE.

NOBLE. HOUSES EITACKD. THE WATTS AWFUL TOLL, One of the Labour leaders in England recently declared that he had done with "duke-baiting , ' —one of the pastimes of the proletariat. In the course of a visit to the battle front he received conviction. He saw the aristocracy of Britain lying dead by the side -of the workers of the country, their weapons in their hands and their faces to the foe, and he was satisfied that in the old nobility there was as.good grit as in the people of commoner clay. It has been printed, and though the figures may be the result of speculation, it is clear from the official lists of killed that hundreds of next-of-kin and heirs to old titles have gone on the long trail with their comrades of the multitude from the ranks of. the people. The fact has ibeen brought .home to Kew South Wales by the death of Lord De la Warr, brother of her Excellency Lady Edeline Strickland, and. in the list of names killed, wounded, and serving, are many not unfamiliar to the citizenship of Australia, (says a Sydney paper). The American wife of an officer of the Guards, writing to a friend in her country, said "England is an empty place—all the "men' have gone to the war." Commenting on this, an English paper says: "This statement is rapidly becoming the literal truth —as long as the emphasis on 'men' is preserved." England is empty of the men of that caste, but the battlefields of France and Belgium are full of their graves. Evf.-y-where along the fighting front there is some corner of a foreign field that is "forever England," made so by the dust of a brave fellow who wore a name that goes back in an unbroken line to the Conqueror, and* may be linked with the building of the Empire of the Anglo-Saxon. In many cases the first to respond to the call, and the first among those who fell fighting, were heirs of houses. In some cases all tne direct heirs have been wiped out. The male line of their house has been extinguished. Numbers of families have lost one, two, and three sons. In some cases every youth able to 'bear arms for the honour of his name is at the front, with the colours, likely to fill a soldier's grave before peace arrives. OLD NAMES EFFACED. The house of Desborough is air but Tviped out. All the youth of the succession has passed away in the fighting. The old house of ■MacDougall, wtacli runs back to the Thane of Argylc in the 12th century, lost the head of the family and the heir within a fen- weeks. Royal blood was spilled when Captain A. A. a KtzClarence, of the Royal Fusiliers, fell, for he was a grandson «f William TV, a fine athlete, who, declining a command in the Boer War, enlisted as a private and ro=e to command. FitzClarence, V.C., a great-grandson of William IV, died on duty. He was one of the defenders of Mafeking. The first Baron Sempill was killed at Flodden Field, the heir to the name was killed near Ypres. The ancient house of Lovat lost the Master of Kinnaird and Major Fraser of the Scots Guards. Lord Lovat is the chief of the IVasers, the thirteenth baron is in history as he who-sent the clansmen "across the. hHK to Charlie," and paid for it with his life at Culloden. (rordon Lennox was the great-grandson of fehat Duke of Richmond who fouglit at Waterloo. Lord St. Davids gave his eldest son, Lord Eibbleadale his only son, Lord Stamfordham, Private Secretary ±o the King, is left without an heir, his only son, Captain Bigge, having been jdlled in Flanders.

Lord Wendover was the only son and heir of of Lincolnshire who as oLrd GraTington will be remembered as Governor of this State. The barony will go to distant relatives. Lord Redesdale sent five sons to the colours. The eldest was killud. Lord Bicharfl Wellesley, one of a -.famous %htin~ line fell early. The long list is rich i n names .with which the world is familiar. There are among the fivllen representatives of men who stand high in politics, literature, engineering, science, medicine, names interwoven with the poetry and romance and history of the British people all the world over. And their caste is in the fighting where, save for a mark on collar or shoulder, there is no difference in thie trenches between the farm labourer, :lhe miner, the iron worker, and the peer. In mud and cold and the constant presence of death they are fighting side by side. It waa for these unswerving soldiers of the trenches, not for their barren' titles, that Rupert Brooke wr»ate— "And nohlenevs walks 1n our ways again, And we have come In to oup heritage!" • DISTINGUISH! 5D SCIONS. Among those fallen whose death will mean the disappearance of some of the best-kmown namves o£ <s:eat Britain are: Lord Haward-en, wha> fell in action; Ms heir is at the' front. ' Hon. CUude Meysey-lhomson, som and heir of Lotd Knar.esborc.ugh; the barony •will becoite cxtintjb. Viscount NortMame, heir to Lord Ranfurly (fonaerly Governor of New Zealand), who. was killed in the firing line. A. baby sosi-iaay sutceed. Lori De Freyne,, a relative of Sir John Fre,e.eh, and his ha'f-brother, heir to the iwaage, were killed in the same day. De Freyniss came to England with the Conqueror, and went to Ireland ■with Strongbow. Lord Worsley, son. and heir of the Earl of Yarborougfc. Jlajor Viscount Crichton, equerry to the King, and son aad heir of the Earl of Erne, leaves an eight-year-old son, who is now an Earl. Captain Lord - Guernsey, son and heir of the Earl of .Aylesford. Hie seven-vear-old son succeeds. Captain Chas. llonck, heir of Viscount Monck. Hon. Robert Bruce, heir of Lord Balfour of BuTleigh. Captain the Hon. Arthur O'Neal, heir of Lord O'Neill. Flight-Lieut. Lord Annesley; a cousin becomes a peer. Lieut, the Hon. G. H. Morris, heir of Lord'Killanin. Lieut. Lord Spencer Compton, heir of the Marquis of Northampton. ♦ Captain the Eon. K. Wyndham, tKe third of his family to fall in the year, •was heir to his brother, Lord Leconfield. Captain the Hon. Gerald Legge, second son of the Earl of Dartmouth. Lieut.-Col. Lord Ninian CrichtonStuart, brother of the Marquis of Bute. Lieut.-Col. J. B. Mac Queen, nephew of Lord Haldane; Lieut. Rawdon Hastings, nephew of two peer&r-Lord Loudoiin and Lord Verulam; Major John Jennings, eldest son of the late General Sir Robe Jennings. „ Lieut. Stirling Stuart, heir of the '.-PUiart of Castlemilk, two of whose aauestore .ioualit against Joan of Arc at the eiefie of Orleans. Sir E. Stewart j^j c liardson, whose title goes back to a

baronetcy of 1630. Lieut. Macdonald, heir to the historic title of "Lord of the Isles," in an unbroken line from Angus, Lord of the Isles in the 14th Century. Lieut, Miller, son of Miller of Glenlec, whose ancestor fell at Quartre-Bras, and was immortalised by Sir' Walter Scott in the "Field of Waterloo."