“SIR EARL” UNMASKED

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 August 1932, Page 5

“SIR EARL” UNMASKED

CANVASSER AS “BARONET”

MARRIAGE ACT BREACH [PER press association.] CHRISTCHURCH, August 30. Before Magistrate- Lawry, to-day, Bernard Walter Williams, 21, of Dunedin, was charged with making a false statement, under the Marriage Act, on May 27, at Waimate. He pleaded guilty, and was committed for sentence.

The police said that accused filled in marriage forms, describing himself as Sir Earl Bernard Earland, a baronet of Nottingham. Subsequently, under that title, he married a girl in Sydenham. The girl knew him under his correct name. All the particulars he supplied to the Registrar were false, but his actions were more foolish than anything else. Th© girl was not misled into marrying him.

The police added that Williams was the son of a storeman at Dunedin, and had never been out of New Zealand in his life. For some time he worked in the Post Office as a messenger, then went farming, and lately had been em. ployed by the Seventh Day Adventists, working on commission, selling Bibles and other Christian literature. He could not explain why he posed as a Baronet. He had gained nothing by it He had been keeping company with the Sydenham girl for some years, and he was now living with her parents. Bail was allowed.