EARNING ITS LIVING

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3445, 19 March 1932, Page 2

EARNING ITS LIVING

NOBILITY START TO WORKDebrett—that dignified red and . gold-bound record of the peerage—may have to be drastically revived 'one day if the people of title continue to turn themselves into navvies, painters and decorators, publicans, book publishers, fish and chip sellers, motor-car drivers, mechanics and kitchen hands.

The question has been raised: "How many peers and peeresses are ! working for their living in England to-day?" Ever since the war ended they have been drifting into commerce and trade. But, although some people of title take to unaccustomed occupations to. supplement their incomes, it must be remembered that many of them do so from a pure spirit of enterprise and not because of financial considerations, says an English exchange. The city provides a living for an unaccounted number of peers and baronets. Others turn from commerce, banking, and the Stock Exchange, and, like the young and enterprising Earl of March, who drives and sells motor cars, take off their coats and really get down ot hard toil.

Forty years as a "Jack-of-all-trades" was the proud boast of Sir John Fagge, the handyman baronet, when he went to England from America 18 months ago. Sir John had driven a tramcar, worked as a waiter, a docker, a boot and shoe assistant, a factory hand, and an insurance agent.

Three years ago Lord Burgh rolled up/his sleeves, opened a basement shop in Kensington; and made and sold women's hats. The youngest son of Lord and Lady Dynevor was

found one day in the kitchen of one of London's great hotels shelling peas and peeling onions with interest. The market porters of East Smithfield were almost tongue-tied when they dropped into the Hand and Shears tavern one day for their midday " 'arf-and-'arf" and found a new host pulling the beer. It was Earl Beauchamp's brother, Major the Hon. Henry Lygon, who had just bought the license of this ancient and picturesque hostelry. Lord Posterlington joined a firm of coach builders a year ago. He actually invented an adjustable seat to accommodate a motorist of any size.

Both the Earl of Northesk and Lord Cottenham went in for selling motor cars. Lord Lathom and Prince George of Russia have done interior decorating. Young Lord Ossulston has piloted an air taxi. A few months ago the Marquis of Carisbroke, the King's cousin and a brother of the ex-Queen of Spain, was found in working class Camberwell learning the job of social organiser for a huge block of tenements.

"Cecil Glenarthur, cars for hire at moderate .prices." This notice outside a shop at Nice told recently of how Lord Glenarthur was earning his living on the Riviera. Lord Howard, of Effingham, eldest son of the Earl of Effingham, said, "I must earn my living somehow," when he joined a stock-broking firm in Sheffield. He had previously tried his hand in the basement of a haberdasher's at Manchester.

Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, as a social experiment, opened a milk shop in Glasgow. Lord Gorell became a publisher, and Lord Burghley, one of England's most famous athletes, became branch manager of an insurance company. The Marquis of Milford Haven, whose mother is a first cousin of the King, went to

America at the beginning of last year to take a temporary job in a Wall Street office.

Many peeresses have opened shops and designed dresses. One titled woman who became a laundress, set a brand new fashion She was Roberta Lady Ossulston, the first wife of the eldest son of the Earl of Tankerville. "I am taking up laundry work," said Lady Ossulston at the time, "because I feel that laundries need capable direction by a woman."

A peeress once took out a hawker's license, and for years a titled woman ran a coffee stall in London.