FROM MOGUL’S TIARA

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 19 August 1927, Page 10

FROM MOGUL’S TIARA

CHILDREN’S VALUABLE TOY. • PIECE OF RED GLASS.’ A huge uncut ruby of great .sentimental value to India, owing to its romantic associations with Shall Jehan, the builder of the Tai Mahal, has been the piaythiniir of the children of a Leicester platelayer. 'Die rubv weighing 61 carts, was lost by Mrs Graham Pole, wife of Major D. Graham Pole, of Palace Chambers, London, when she was veiling to Swadlincote, Derbyshire, on June 8. It was picked up on tlie permanent way, near Leicester, by Mir J. H. Wade, a platelayer, who, not realising what it was, gave it to his two ehild re n. “Oh, what a pretty piece ol red glass!’ the children exclaimed, and they p ayed with it until it had lost its novelty. Then the ruby, which was once the central piece in the. tiara worn by the- Mogul heir apparent to the throne of India, was flung into a corner among a heap of discarded toys. It was not until Mr Wade .picked up a newspaper containing an advertisement describing the missing rubv that he recognised It as the ‘piece of red glass” he had found. With considerable difficulty the ruby was found .and •‘The ruby originally belonged to the great Mogul Emperor Jehangir, whose fondness for rubies is prover Dial in India,” Major Pole told a “Daily Chronicle” representative, on June 21. “It then passed into tbe hands of his wife, the famous Queen Nurjehan, the Light of the Wor’d, later passing into the hands of the Taj Mana.l bulkier. Scratched on the ruby is a' Persian inscription bearing the date A.D. 1612.

“It was given to me about ten years ago by Lula Marain Das. the Government jeweller, who valued all the presents given to King Edward, and I had it hung on a gold chain for Mrs Pole.

“Although it was valued at £SOOO In India on account of it® historic connections, the fact that "it has had a hole bored through it deprives it) of much of its value in this country. “Ar.v wife discovered the loss at Leicester, where she found that the gold chain was broken. Apparently the rubv fell on the platform and rolled on to the railway track.”