MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 117, 19 May 1914, Page 9

MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL

MARRIAGE TO MR. G. CORNWALLISWEST. A DRAMATIC SURPRISE. (FROM 01)11 OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, 9th April. WiUiin two hours of the President of the Divorce Division making absolute the decree nisi granted against Ml". G. Cornwallis-West to his wife, formerly Lady Randolph Churchill, Mr. CornwallisWest married Mrs. Patrick Compbell, the famous actress. The ceremony was performed at Kensington Registry Office. Few even of the bride's most intynate friends knew that the marriage w£s to take place, and they were sworn to the strictest secrecy. Shortly after 1 o'clock on Monday word was brought to Mr. CornwalHs-West at his residence in St. James's Place that the decree nisi had been made absolute. Accompanied by Mr. James Tillett and Mr. George Davy, he drove in a closed motor-car to the registry office, where at 2.30 Mrs. Patrick Campbell, motoring from her house in Kensington, joined him. Mrs. Campbell was dressed in black silk, with plaid silk ribbons, with sashes about the knees and waist. She wore a chiffon corsage and a. black hat with ribbons to match. Mr. Cornwallis-West was in a blue serge suit with a dark, heavy overcoat and a Trilby hat. He greeted ill's. Campbell when her car arrived at the registry office, and with the typical smile of the happy bride she alighted and passed into the office! The ceremony, including the signing of the documents, was over within a quarter of an hour. The certificate of the marriage is as follows : — George Frederick Myddleton Corn-wallis-West, aged thirty-nine, divorced husband of Jennie CornwallisWest (formerly Churchill, widow) ; independent means ; father's name and surname, William CornwallisWest, Lord-Lieutenant of Denbighshire. Beatrice o Stella, Campbell, aged forty-seven," widow ; father's name John Tanner, deceased, gentleman. The witnesses were James Tillett and George Davy. THE ACTRESS RECOGNISED. Meanwhile Mrs. Patrick Campbell had been recognised, and a small group assembled outside the office. A photographer was ready for a snapshot of the bride and bridegroom, bub the latter was too quick. Looking greatly annoyed he snatched the camera out of the man's hand, and took it away with him in his motor-car. The newly-married couple left for the country for a brief honeymoon, but Mrs. Cornwallis-West was due to return to His Majesty's Theatre yes* terday for the resumed rehearsals of "Pygmalion." Mr. Cornwallis-West is the heir of Colonel W. C. Cornwallis-West, who has been Lord Lieutenant of Denbighshire since 1872 and owns 10,000 acres. His mother, a daughter of Mr. and Lady Olivia FitzPatrick, was one of the most beautiful women of her day, and his sisters, both famous beauties, are now the Duchess of Westminster and the Princess of Pless. In July, 1900, he married Lady Randolph Churchill, then a widow, at St. Paul's Church, Knightsbridge. He was at wiat time an officer in the Scots Guards. He served in the South African War, and was invalided homo after a severe attack of enteric fever. It will be remembered that during the same \yar Lady Randolph equipped the hospital ship Maine, and went out to the Cape on it. After their marriage they lived in Norfolkstreet, Park Lane, until 23rd December, 1912. On that date, according to statements afterwards made in the Divorce Court, Mr. Cornwallis-West left the house and refused to return. On this and other evidence a decree nisi was pronounced on 16th July last, and this was made absolute shortly before Mr. Cormva Ilia- West's second marriage. THE BRIDE. Mrs. Patrick Campbell, though her name gave no hint of it, has Italian blood in her veins, for her mother was Luigia Rotnanini, the beautiful daughter of a political refugee. She was only sixteen at the time of her runaway marriage with a naval cadet named Patrick Campbell, two years older than herself. Mr. Campbell was the son of a Scotsman, who was manager of the Oriental Bank, both in the East and in London. The young husband left the Navy and went abroad on business when his wife was twenty-one. He became a tea-planter, and was absent for seven years. Meanwhile, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, already an accomplished musician, became first an amateur actress (with a Norwood society), and then a Shakespearean actress with the Bandmann, Palmer, and Ben Greet companies. The part of Paula Tanqueray, in "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," the forerunner of the modern problem play, brought her fame in 1893 ; Lady Alexander saw her in "The Light of Home" and persuaded her husband to engage the then comparative ly obscure young actress. Since then she has had a career of triumph. Her husband, Mr. Patrick Campbell, died in 1900 in South Africa., where he served with distinction in the Imperial Yeomanry. She has two children — Mr. Alan Campbell, who after a brief time in the Navy took to dramatic writing and the stage, and Miss Stella Campbell, who is steadily making her way in the profession which her mother adorns.