"PAUPER BARONET" DEAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12931, 29 July 1905, Page 2 (Supplement)

"PAUPER BARONET" DEAD.

' ROMANTIC COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. . Sin William Gordon Macgregor, Bart., whose life had been one long romance, died at Bristol at the age of fifty-uine. He was born at Bothamsall, Nottinghamshire, educated at Haileybury, and in 1879 succeeded as fourth baronet his father, the Rev. Sir C. Macgregor.

> After roaming about -the world for some years Sir William, broken in health and empty of pocket, came to "London. He tramped to Woodford, and was admitted a patient of' the Jubilee Hospital there. Oh: his recovery, as he was destitute, lie was transferred to the West Ham Workhouse, where he remained in obscurity for a considerable period. • Early in 1903 some relatives heard of his sad plight, and set him lip in comfortable apartments at Leytonstone- He was also put in : possession of a small annuity, but this is said to have ceased on the death of' liis brother, General Macgregor. The publicity givtn to his misfortunes brought the ex-pauper baronet hundreds of letters of sympathy, and also many offers of marriage. The latter included one received . through a West End matrimonial agency. He was-told by the agency that a wealthy American lady was willing to pay £25,000 for the privilege of marrying a titled Englishman, and an agreement was actually drawn up, in which it was stipulated that Sir William was to receive £5000 on the wedding day. But when the lady was told that the agency had found a baronet only for her she declined to many him, stating that she cxpected a duke for her £25,000. /

: Afterwards Sir William, it is said, arranged to marry the sister of a lady who bad- called at the workhouse to express her sympathy for him. A. hitch occurred, however, and there was no marriage. But the baronet's desire to enter the matrimonial state was not to remain unsatisfied, for shortly afterwards he married the sister whom he bad seen in the workhouse.

This was Miss Alice Gulliver, of Stoke Bishop, daughter of the late Captain Gulliver, R.N- The wedding took place very quietly at a registry office at Bristol, and the newly-married pair went to live in a small house at Clifton.

: Sir William is succeeded in the title by his nephew, Cyril Patrick Macgregor, who was born in 1887.