QUEEN OF NIGHT CLUBS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 279, 24 November 1928, Page 10

QUEEN OF NIGHT CLUBS.

MRS. MEYRICK'S SPECTACULAR

CAREER

PROPRIETOR OF NOTORIOUS RESORTS. MARRIES DAUGHTERS TO PEERS. Mrs. Mcyrick, the notorious manageress of night clubs, who was sentenced to a term of imprisonment in June, was discharged from Holloway Prison to-day, and was met by her daughter, the Countess of Kinnoull, and her husband.—London cable dated November 22.

The story of this remarkable woman, as told by William M. Laas, makes interesting reading. Here it is:—

I Behind the bars for a second time because of her night club operations, Mrs. Kate Meyrick, "Queen of Night Clubs," lias finally surrendered after a long struggle with London's police. She announced at her trial in Bow Street Police Jourt that she is through with night •lub life, and her understudies, one 01 ;hem an Earl, are preparing to get rid jf her clubs. Judging from the reaction if the fashionably dressed audience that leard the sentence passed, her retirt nent is a catastrophe to social London.

The police call Mrs. Meyrick the worst >reaker of license laws in the metropolis, jut her friends declare her to bo the nost remarkable woman in London. Certainly, she has made her gay resorts lecessary to fashionable London, countng among her friends and patrons peers, generals and men in the public eye. Despite her dubious profession, she sue ■ceded in marrying both her daughters : nto two of the oldest families in Briain.

Two years ago Dorothy ("Dolly"), the ildest daughter, was married to Baron le Clifford, and more recently the ounger, May, married the Earl of Kin loull. In both cases prison sentences for Mrs. Meyrick followed the weddings, nit the Earl of Kinnoull became her 'ight-hand man in directing the nigm, ■lubs.

Before the war Mrs. Meyrick was the wife of Dr. Ferdinand Meyrick, a Dubic physician antl psychoanalyst. He had ii pet idea of a sanitarium for neurotics an idea now proven practical but then

derided. He sacrificed everything to Keep up this hospital, and for' twenty years the family struggled along on a small income. Then about the time wai iroke out husband and wife parted. Mrs. Meyrick had been satisfied with the usual middle class existence, but after the separation she and her children were left practically without means of support. An advertisement concerning a cabaret for rent cheap caught her ey e, and she determined to have a fling at the night club business. But she retained the ambition properly to educate her children and to marry her two daughters well.

The first club was in a basement in Leicester Square, and the gaiety of the place soon made it one of the most popu-' tar m London. The club was the liveliest in the hectic West End, and tense nerved revellers of all classes poured money into her hands. Thieves anu peers elbowed each other on its tin\ dance floor.

That club was closed in time, but she jpened. others, running three and foui m once. The police raided them frequently, usually for violations of the law prohibiting the sale of intoxicants after midnight, But whenever one of her places was closed, Mrs. Meyrick opened another elsewhere, keeping the police always jumps behind her. Before hei .atest arrest, a magistrate issued twentysix summonses against her clubs Sue always pleaded guilty, paid the fine, and promptly opened another, place. At diflerent times she has operated forty-, three. '

.Meanwhile her children were being educated at the most exclusive schools in England under assumed names. Son Leslie attended Harrow, most of whose students are chosen from members 01 die aristocracy, while the two girls went to Girton, the feminine equivalent of Harrow. During vacations they toured the Continent with well-paid chaperons and they never set foot in any of their mother's clubs until after graduation. By that time, however, they were able to take a hand in the business, appear ing nightly at their mother's sumptuous ' Forty-three" club. They became one of the cluer attractions of the place and their mother boasted that her daughters had danced with Princes, Dukes and Cabinet Ministers.

The Forty-Three in Gerrad Street, was Mrs. Meyrick's favourite establishment. Expensively decorated within, it had a plain heavily curtained, plate-glass front, guarded by two huge and gorgeously uniformed commissionaires—really bouncers in disguise. Within, seated at a small cashier's desk, was the proprietress, al-, ways dressed in the same shabby velvet coat, with untidy hair and a ready smile I which exposed a missing tooth.

There were two scales of admission prices—a pound.if the patron wore a silk hat and five shillings if he didn'ti Titled persons were never pressed to pay, it being enough for Mrs. Meyrick to have a nobleman for a guest. She accepted cheques and I.O.U's carelessly, often giving a youth a sovereign when she saw he was broke.

The merry informality of the place was the magnet that drew the crowd. In the kitchen any morning one might find a famoi\s actress cooking herself a breakfast of bacon and eggs, with a burglar making coffee and a duke washing up at the sink. Liquor was sold freely at all hours despite the law, and even imprisonment did not prevent her from keeping the place wide opdn.

At the opposite extreme of this fashionable club, she owned another called Dalton's—once' denounced by a magistrate as a "sink of iniquity." It wai the worst kind of underworld dive. The orchestra consisted of three negroes, who played until they tired. Then they would turn on a phonograph and mingls with the guests. That club was soon closed.

Nevertheless, "Mother" Meyrick saw to it that her daughters met only the "right" men, the men best in reputation and family tradition, though not always in. cash. In Paris, where she was helping to run a Montmartre cabaret called "Meyrick's Gaiety," Dolly met the nine-teen-year-old Baron de Clifford. He was one of the "right" men. His title dates back to 1299, but his estate is only credited with some 13,000 acres ia County Mayo, Ireland—not a particularly valuable asset. Back in London, Dolly opened a club of her own, the "Manhatten," and ds Clifford became the most frequent guest, For several months he and Dolly were constantly together, and one night they suddenly disappeared. The next day It was disclosed that they were married.

With Dolly removed from the trio, May, the other daughter, took, a still more active part directing her mother's clubs. Mrs. Meyrick exercised the same precautions in choosing her dancing partners as she had with Dorothy's; and presentlv another "right" young peer appeared. The Earl of Kinnoull was not perhaps so_ "right" as he might have been in point of contemporary renutation, but his family was famous In Scotland three centuries before King James T. created the earldom. When ho mot Miss Meyrick at the Silver-Slipper Club he was still legally married to his first wife, the former Miss Enid Fellows. He announced his engagement to Mav just one flay after the 'Countess secured her divorce. (Anglo-American N.S. Copyright.).