THE DUKEDOM OF PORTLAND.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 22 April 1907, Page 3

THE DUKEDOM OF PORTLAND.

. THE DRUCE CLAIMS^ Mr George Hollamby Bruce, whoso case against Lord Howard,' fie Waldeu, as the life owner of estates) of the filth Duke of Portland', will probably come, on for hearing! in a few months, has (said the ■'•■Daily Mail" of January 17th) recieved an intitooition that a now witness is on her way from Nc-w Zealand, a lady who states ' that she was for some years private secretary to the fifth duke of Welbeck Abbey. The witness 'arrived this month and complained that her luggagehad been tampered with. The essential facts in tliis romantic case are as follows:— Tha 'first claimant was Mrs Anna Druce, For several years Mrs Druce, who believed herself to be the widow of the eldest legitimate son of fThomas Charles Druce, of the Bakfer street Bazaar, made unveiling efforts to compel the ConSistory Court to grant her an order to open the grave of her •husband's father in Highg a te Cemetery. In this grave, she al)egod, was buried not the body of Thomas Druoe, 'but a quantity. . of lead 1 , Druco, she said, was really the fifth.. Duke of Portland, who did not di« until 1679, Unfortunately for Mrs Druce, .the facts- as to the death of Thomas J>ruce were sworn to. by doctors and a housekeeper, and thu courts' refused to grant the order. The Druce case was begmnfeg to lose iinterest, when a new claimant appeared in the person of Mr George Hollam,by. Druce, an Australian Carpenter^ Ho claimed to have a better right thlan Mrs Anna Druce to take an interest in ithe 'Portland claim, inasmuch' ac hie was the sou of the eldest son of Thomas Charles Druce -by a first marriage with Elizabeth Crickmer at Bury St. Edmunds on October 19th, 1816. According to the Hollamby Druce claim, this marriaipe )Wias a runaway nmtchi between T. 0. Drucej described as >a linerdraper, and a schoolgirl heiress wttM a fortuno of £1-5,000. r rh c '•'draper" is said to have appeared from nowhere, a handsome yovnsr man, without friends or relatives. For throa years he lived .wdthi his wife, spending Uis money freely i In IS2O, his, wife"s fortune having disappeared, he deserted her and her children. For fifteen years itho Druce family) at Bury St. Edmunds heard no onoro of their father. In ■1885 he seems to have sucidemly rei pehted of his desertion, and discovering the ship on which tho I fatHer of the present claimam* was serving his [[apprenticeship was lying in tine Thames, he went down to Gravesend and sent for his six-teen-year-old son. Now for tHs first time the Druce family, teamed that the missing father -was the proprietor of a bazaar in Bater street. The boy was taken there, educated at a naval academy, and again , sent to sea. His sister, the aunt of the claimant,: was plso sent for, and Hved mantf years .w-ith her. father, who now appears as the owner of a residence at- Brigbton, a hunting-box in Leicestershire, and a country seat at 'Hendoin. !The question that the courts are nowi •asked 'i-o'' decide is: Was this man Druce, the owner of the bazaar, ■graUfifather of «feorgo HoUamlby. Bruce realty the fifth Duke of Portland? - _■„ _____===

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