RELATIVES OF PEER

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 January 1928, Page 12

RELATIVES OF PEER

RISE FROM POVERTY.

NEW YORK, November 27. Miss Catherine Buchanan, aged twenty, hitherto employed as a. typist in the office of a fountain pen company, and her seventeen-year-old sister, Jean, according to a despatch from Janesville, Wisconsin, to the New York “World,” have had the good fortune to be claimed as grand-nieces by Lord Woolavington. They have been visiting him in England as a sequel to Lord Woolavington’s search for lost relatives in America to share his fortune. A letter arrived recently in Janesville from Lord ‘ Woolavington’s solicitors requesting information concerning the family of William Buchanan, his brother, who emigrated to Janesville many years ago, and whose two sons, William and Alexander, were born there. Reply was sent that Alexander was a well-to-do farmer, but that William was dead and his family were compelled to struggle for their existence.

The family consisted of Catherine, her widowed mother, and her four brothers and sisters, who lived in a humble white cottage at the.end of a side street. A communication then arrived from Lord Woolavington stating that he wished to do something for the family, and that he desired Catherine and Jean to visit him in England. His communication contained a cheque to pay for their clothes and passage. The offer was accepted, and in some trepidation the two sisters set forth recently for London, exchanging Janesville cottage life for a sumptuous residence in England. Lord Woolavington, formerly Sir Janies Buchanan, was made a peer in 1922. He is a keen all-round sportsman noted for unobtrusive philanthropy, and has twice won the Derby —in 1922 with Captain Cuttie and 1926 with Coronach. He is the head of the famous Buchanan whisky firm and a millionaire.