SECRET MARRIAGE BUREAU

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 21 December 1938, Page 10

SECRET MARRIAGE BUREAU

FOR GERMAN JEWESSES ENGLISH HUSBANDS •’BOUGHT” -BRIDEGROOM” CHARGED WITH BIGAMY |B> Air Mail—Bueuial Oorre*r«-nflentl LONDON. 19th November. That German Jewesses ‘ buy” English husbands for £6O and a new suit was the allegation made this week in London when a married man with eight children was sentenced to four monthsimprisonment for bigamy. It was disclosed that a secret marriage bureau existed in London to provide British nrCr'^'’ : ty for wealthy German Jewess refugees. f Agenda of the bureau have Deen approaching labourers, lorry-drivers, and unemployed men ofTering large sums of money to persuade them to marry German Jewesses. The organisation is centred in an office in High Hoi born, where “bridegrooms” go in their shabby clothes to be interviewed by a dapper German. The fee offered is usually £6O and expenses. including a new suit for the ceremony. One stipulation is made—the bridegroom must sign a pledge not to approach the bride after the ceremony. At the Old Bailey when Albert William Turner was prosecuted for bigamously marrying a German Jewess, it was said that the ceremony was a marriage of convenience. Fordham, a 54-years-old tunneller. was legally married in 1913, and had eight children. He left his wife in August. 1932. On 12th October last he met Mr; Emma Meyer, a German Jewess, anc went through a form of marriage witl her a few days later at Chelsea registe

office. They separated immediately atJ terwards. j Fordham told the police. “I have not } ! done anything wrong. I got £35 for | marrying her. and a new suit.” I Gilbert Patrick McGowan, unemployed lorry driver, described later how he avoided the trap that Fordham fell j into. He said: "I was finishing work : with a firm. Another driver said: ‘What ; are you going to do now, Mac? I can put you in the way of £6O. but it means your marrying.’ “Over a drink he told me I would have to marry a German countess and sign a paper not to see her again, as she only wanted to get her money into England and have British nationality. Next day he took me to an office in High Holborn. We were shown into a • small bare room. There was no furniL ture—just bare walls and floor. * “A little, black-haired Jewish-look-ing man shook hands with us. We were ; told to call him the ’doctor.’ Two other l men were with him. They all spoke 1 German accents. They gave me 10s, r told me to get two copies of my birth certificate and a passport, and come ’ back the next day for the ‘countess’ to approve me. “That evening I met the “doctor’ and Fordham in a public house, and told them I was not going on with it. Fordham said he would go in my place.”