EAST AND WEST

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 123, 20 November 1931, Page 9

EAST AND WEST

MARRIAGE AT SINGAPORE

WHITE SULTANA OF

JOHORE

SINGAPORE, 19th November.

A romance associated with tho Sultan of Johore, Sir Ibrahim and Mrs. Ilelcn Wilson, daughter of a Kilmarnock business man, was consummated by a picturesque and magnificent spectacle at the Sultan's Palace, when the couple were married. Tho brido presented a glittering and graceful figure. She is the former wife of a young doctor who is practising in her present husband's domain. She bocomes Sultana over 330,000 Malay and Chinese subjects. The Sultana,, who, is ;i beautiful blonde, showed traces of nervousness when seated on itho throno surrounded by the splendour of the wealthy State. Sho was tho' cynosure of all eyes as sho affirmed her readiness to wear,the crown of Johore and follow Malay customs and religious usage. The Sultan, who is 58 years of ago, has visited Australia, and is famed here as a big-game shot. Ho is an expert rubber planter, and trains his own racehorses and ponies.

The marriage took place of the Sultan of Johoro and Mrs; Helen Wilson, the 40-year-old former wife of a Scottish doctor, in October last year. There was romance behind the story of the wedding in Prince's Bow Eegistry Office, £or the Sultan, who is 58 and who rules over one of the richest of the Malay States, arrived in London after an 8000 miles journey, went straight to Grosvonor House, where Mrs. Wilson was staying, proposed, and immediately applied for a marriage licence. The friendship between .the two dates back twenty years, when Mrs. Wilson, tho daughter of a Kilmarnock business man, journeyed to Singaporo to marry a young Scottish doctor whose father had been a Government doctor in Johore. Mrs. Wilson frequently met tho Sultan at Singapore and Johore, where she was a well-known hostess. The Sultan Ibrahim is one of tho wealthiest of Eastern potentates, and ,is extremely friendly towards Britain. During the war he presented the Imperial Government with a fleet of fourteen aeroplanes, which cost him £50,000. Dospite his wealth, ho prefers living in tho wilds, wandering through the junglo, big-gatno hunting, and motorcar racing to residing in his court. The Sultan is a famous hunter, and always follows the dangerous practice of hunting on foot.