The Countess is delighted

Press, 12 October 1985, Page 19

The Countess is delighted

The Countess of Rosebery is absolutely delighted. The youngest of her four daughters, Lady Caroline, aged 20, blond and attractive,, with a liking for the land, is to wed a young North Canterbury farmer, David Caldwell, partner in a notable cattle stud farm. Aged 29, David got to know Caroline when she stayed at Winchenden, Cheviot, which he runs with his father, Mr James Caldwell, former president of the New Zealand Hereford Association. Lady Caroline, a member of one of Scotland’s most famous families, is intensely interested in practical farming, and is not afraid to get her hands dirty. David fell for her when she spent several months at Winchenden gaining practical experience as a pre-requisite to enrolling in a course back home at Cirencester Agricultural College, where she is now studying. David announced the engagement publicly a couple of weeks ago, but is trying to keep a low profile. North Canterbury people who met Caroline at parties say she is rather quiet. His future mother-in-law, the Countess of Rosebery, speaking from the ancestral home, Dalmeny House, is most enthusiastic:

“I love New Zealand and had a most enjoyable visit back in March when Caroline was staying with the Caldwells,” she said. "Of course the young couple were not romantically inclined then." She describes the 1530 acres of rolling hill country, with its famous Polled Herefords, 5000 Corriedale sheep and South Suffolk stud, as "lovely country.”

“It is a region full of super people and particularly attractive from Caroline’s point of view — rather like parts of Scotland she knows so well.”

The countess already has a family link with New Zealand. Her mother, who married a doctor from Colchester, Essex, was a Chaytor from Marlborough, and left the country in her early teens. "Actually, I nearly spent the war in New Zealand and was sent down to Tilbury to board a ship on a Saturday which had already left on Friday, 1 ' Lady Rosebery recalls. Her daughter Caroline has a number of cousins in Marlborough, and this thought pleases her mother.

"I mean, it will not be as though she will be living at the back of beyond. She will be on the main road, and lots of cousins will be able to call on her.”

It was through the cousins that she met her future husband. After a period with Australian cousins, on their farm, she arrived in Marlborough. There some of her New Zealand cousins were friends

of the Caldwells and arranged for her to go there. Caroline liked the Caldwells so much that the six weeks initially arranged turned into seven months. The famous fifth Earl of Rosebery, a Liberal Prime Minister of England, won the Derby three times. "My mother-in-law races a few horses, says the countess, “but the family does not breed them now. Caroline does love riding though.” The woods and grounds of Dalmeny House border the M9O motorway out of Edinburgh. Trees were planted by princes and statesmen, most of them between 1890 and 1910 when the fifth Earl of Rosebery was prominent in British politics. The Roseberys run cattle on the estate and I asked whether they are Herefords.

“Our cattle are not pedigree,” says the countess. “There are some Aberdeen Angus I know, and what are those large, square things?”

The seventh Earl of Rosebery comes on the line: “She wouldn’t know one end of a cow from the other. We have blue-grey cows, which in the first year go to Aberdeen Angus bulls and then are later crossed with Charolais.”

He explains that the estate consists of poor land and areas of better quality. "We have 3000 black-faced sheep, and on better ground 700 to 800 crossed sheep. In addition, 1000 acres are down in cereals.” As to how much land he owns, Lord Rosebery is unsure, particu-

larly about the area of the Highlands. Roughly, he says, there are two acres to a sheep — which works out at 7600 acres. I am handed back to the countess who confirms that the wedding date is May 10. The couple will be married in St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh where Caroline was confirmed. It is also the church in which another daughter, Emma, now living in Hong Kong where her husband works for the famous Jardine Matheson firm, was married. Lady Rosebery explains that the wedding date has been fixed so far

ahead to enable cousins, relatives and friends from New Zealand and other parts of the world to make arrangements to attend. The reception will be at Dalmeny House and the countess expects a marquee will be needed as well. “We do hope to have a good number of guests from New Zealand,” she says. Caroline’s mother thinks her youngest daughter will be happy in North Canterbury “where she will have the opportunity to do so much of what she considers really important in life. “She likes to ride, strives for quality farming and likes people rather than the town. She is also good at mathematics, and has just about passed all her examinations in learning to fly.”

Of course Caroline misses David. They talk on the telephone across 12,000 miles "and 20 minutes later Caroline is still on the ’phone.” The countess says her daughter turns 21 in November and it is important she should spend some time as an adult in her own country, rather than feeling as though she has gone straight into marriage from school. A visit to New Zealand early next year is being discussed, and the couple may both travel to Scotland together for the wedding. “Caroline is very lucky in that her future parents-ih-law are such super people and looked after her very well indeed," Lady Rosebery observes. "David has an adjoining property which he farms in conjunction with

his father, and she will live on it.” The Scottish peerage into which David Caldwell will marry goes back to 1700. The most famous Rosebery was the fifth earl who was Prime Minister in 1894-95. As early as his days at Eton, he was acknowledged for his brilliance, wit and charm. An enthusiastic horse-racing man, he was sent down from Oxford when an undergraduate because he refused to give up his racing stud.

But he went on to become Prime Minister, to win the Derby three times, and to. marry the richest heiress in England. His bride in 1878 was Hannah, only daughter and heiress of Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild, of Mentmore Towers, Buckinghamshire. Later when opposing moves to restrict the authority of the House of Lords, Lord Rosebery jumped up and announced, “In this last, shortest and perhaps most painful speech of my life,” that he would vote with the Government.

Since, whatever the outcome, “the House of Lords, as we have known it, disappears,” he intended never to enter its doors again. He never did. The fifth Earl visited New Zealand and Australia in 1883, as a member of Gladstone’s Government. It was here that he developed his view of Imperial relations. His declaration in Adelaide that the Empire was a “Commonwealth of Nations” was probably the origin of the concept of the British Commonwealth.