LAST GILBERT LINK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 4, 6 January 1937, Page 10

LAST GILBERT LINK.

DEATH OF WIDOW. A HOME OF MEMORIES. (Special.—By Air Mall.) LONDON", December 19. This week Lady Gilbert passed away and with her the last real link with the famous librettist whose genius lost to the world 25 years ago. She died, aged 88, at Grim's Dyke, Harrow Weald, about 15 miles from London—a house of Gilbert and Sullivan memories. Lady Gilbert kept everything as it was on the afternoon of her husband's death. A member of the household said this week: "Lady Gilbert was always distressed at the differing accounts of Sir William's death. The truth is that as he was a good swimmer he did not allow his age to prevent him from going to the assistance of a woman member of a bathing party who was in difficulties. He brought, her to the shore and then collapsed because of the strain." Ever since her husband's death Lady Gilbert had guarded valuable relics of his life. She kept them in the billiard room, which was always locked. There still was the black wooden executioner's block used in "The Yeomen of the Guard." The axe was at its foot and the cuts it had made in the block still looked fresh.