MELODRAMATIC CAREER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11825, 30 November 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

MELODRAMATIC CAREER.

THE HlSluilY OF THE "QUEEN OF

THE GIPSIES." Mrs. Mary Brooks, lately residing at Gloucester-street, Queen's Square, Bloomsbury, was killed recently by being knocked down by a train near Laindon Station. She had lived a most romantic life. Mrs. Brooks was well known as the " Queen of the Gipsies." Her first husband was a Mr. Bond, who died suddenly. An inquest was held. Afterwards she married a younger man named Lee, but he turned out to be a very near relative, and Scotland Yard intervened. On the day ne was to have attended at Scotland lard for an interview with the heads of the Criminal Investigation Department he was found in a comatose state in an ante-room at their residence at Camberwell, and the subsequent inquest caused quite a sensation. Her third matrimonial venture was a man named Brooks,, and after five years he died suddenly, and an. inquest Was" duly held. A short time ago there died in West Ham Workhouse an old gipsy by the name of Sammy Lee, known as the "King of the Gipsies,"and in Mrs. Brooks' presence he said she was the daughter of John Clarence Wagg, and that, when very young, he put her in Brentwood School. Sammy stated the chiid was stolen from his Uncle Jims daughter, Charlotte Cooper. Mrs. Brooks' mother was married twice, on the first occasion to Squire Wagg, as ho was known, in Chelsea parish, and where the only daughter was born in Clieyue Walk, afterwards Mary, the deceased. It was a son of this Sammy Lee who married her, for the second husband, and was so nearly related as to cause inquiries to be set on foot. She claimed to be related to Sophie Chilcotte, who was afterwards the wife of Elijah Smith, the last king of the Bohemian race, as her great-granddaughter. Owing to the strife that existed between the families of the gipsies it was difftcub to trace any pedigree, but she averred that she was the" lost child, and tha*, her great-grandfather- was Johnston, a weaLhy West Indian coii'ee planter, who married the sister of Bishop Kirby, of Ely, Cambridge. She also claimed to be related to Meyer Rothschild's daughter, and that the Clothing Mart and much property in the district of Houndsditch was some day to como to her, and she was prosecuting her claim to this and property at Hounslow, Reading, and Herts. Mrs. Brooks met her death after paying a visit to the gipsy camp at Laindon. At the inquest Henry Spencer, gipsy hawker, said deceased told him she was Queen of the Gipsies, and had thousands of pounds in the Bank of England. The jury returned a verdict of •' Found dead, on the railway."