GRETNA GREEN

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 113, 6 February 1937, Page 21

GRETNA GREEN

A Centre For Shoddy Romance?

The anvil marriages at Gretna Green, which have sealed so many romantic elopements, may soon be stopped, according to recent reports. For many years the Church of Scotland has viewed the “goings on” at the historic smithy with a jaundiced eye. According to a special London correspondent in “The Sydney Morning Herald,” it seems we are now do expect a formal condemnation in the report about to be published by the Departmental Committee on the Constitution of Marriage in Scotland. Hard things were said of the smithy In the course of the inquiry, one witness describing it as a national reproach. Such terms as “specious glamour,” “shoddy romance,” and “thoughtless, irresponsible young men and women,” were also bandied about with great freedom, chiefly by scandalised divines.

Mr. G. B. Mackie, a farmer, and manager of the Gretna smithy and museum, gave the committee the following figures of the number of marriages performed there in recent years1926 to 192 S 3«“ 1929 1930 33 1 1931 2-W 1932 -’l5 1933 -*0 1934 3- 1 1935 305 Tlie smithv and other property were purchased by Mr. Mackie’s father about 1890, and converted into a museum in 1900. When Mr. Mackie’s father died in February. 1934, he leftover £13,000. In these days of grace, marriages arc performed by the caretaker, Mr. R. Rennlson, who told the committee that the procedure was for the parties

to declare before witnesses that both were single and that one or the other had been resident in Scotland for 21 days. He then declared them married, gave them a certificate, and entered the marriage in the register. The usual fee was £l, which went to him after certain expenses had been deducted. Yet, in its time, Gretna Green has rejoiced in aristocratic patronage, and was the goal of many a distinguished elopement, including that of Lord Kenyon, an eighteenth century Lord Chief Justice. Records of the early part of last century show that the following “runaway couples” were united over the anvil: — Prince Carlo Ferdinando Borbone, younger brother of King Ferdinand 11. of the Sicilies, and Penelope Smyth, of Waterford.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, grandson of tlie dramatist, and Maria Grant. Captain Francis Lovell and Lady Rose Caroline Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort. Lord Drumlanrig (afterward Marquess of Queensbury) and Carolina Clayton. Captain 0. P. Ibbetson and Lady Adela Villiers, daughter of the Earl of Jersey. Lady Villiers's grandmother was also a Gretna bride, being married there to Lord Westmorland. Her father, a famous banker, chased the young couple for many miles, until all his coach horses had been shot by his orospective son-in-law! More recently, in 1930, Mr. John .Beckett, then M.P. for Peckham, and Miss .Kyrle Bellew, the actress widow of Arthur Bourchier, were married at the smithy by Mr. Rennison.