LORD LEITH OF FYVIE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19215, 2 January 1926, Page 11

LORD LEITH OF FYVIE.

NO HEIR TO THE TITLE. A NO-SUCCESSION "CURSE." PATRIOT AND PHILANTHROPIST. [FROM OUR OWN correspondent. ] LONDON, Nov. 21. Death has removed, at the <:q;e of 78, an interesting personality in Lord Loith of Fyvie, who, 20 years ago, was i:\ised to the peerage. The career of Air. Alexander John Forbes-Leith, as he then was, has been one of the. most, romantic in the his- j tory of great families. Both on the paternal and the maternal side he was of ancient lineage. His father was descended from Duncan Forbes, second son of the second Lord Forbes, while on his mother's side he traced his descent from a William Leith, who was Provost of Aberdeen in 1350. He was the son of Rear-Admiral John James Leith by his marriage with Margaret, daughter and heiress of Alexander Forbes, o:t Blackford, Aberdeenshire. At 12 years of ago Lord Leith of Fyvie joined the training ship Britannia, and when still in his teens he saw active service in New 2!ealand. He was only 19 when ho was; awarded the Humane Society's silver medal for saving life. In 1870 the whole course of his career was changed. He was then lieutenant in H.M.S. Zealous, flagship of the Pacific Squadron. France and Germany were then at war, and it was thought advisable to keep the warships within hail of the Admiralty. The Zealous lay in San Francisco Harbour for two months, and entertainment of all kinds went on constantly ashore and on board. One day there arrived at the Palace Hotel Miss Marie L. January, one of the greatest heiresses of St. Louis, an orphan who, when she came of age three months later, would possess many millions in iron and steel works under her father's will. Lieutenant Forbes-Leith met her at a dance on board the ship. She was a very beautiful girl: he was a smart and handsome young officer, and it was a case of love at first sight. He left the service, and the marriage took placo in 1871. For several years the young couple lived in America, where both in Chicago and St. Louis Mr. Forbes-Leith became one of the active business men of the West, looking after his wife's vast iron and steel, interests, and embarking on some enterprises of his own, which brought him immense wealth when the gigantic steel trust was formed. The Family Home. Then he returned to England, to fulfil the dream of his life by buying" back the estates of his ancestors. The famous Fyvie Castle had passed out of the hands of the family of its founders for over 300 years, but Mr. Forbes-Leith bought it back, and a few years later took from it the title of the barony which King Edward bestowed upon him in 3.905. Lady Leith was a well-known hostess during the brilliant Edwardian period, and entertained on a lavish scale. She shared her husband's passion for yachting, and the Miranda, a fine steam yacht, has anchored in most of the principal harbours of Europe. Daring the South African War he did excellent work in organising locally-raised forces and providing them with supplies. He also presented to the Scottish yeomanry battalion, two quick-firing guns with transport waggons and the necessary fittings, and gave free insurance policies to 170 Gordon Highlander volunteers. Soon after the outbreak of the Great War he was in France superintending the operations of a private Red Cross expedi tion. He was elected president of the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners Royal Benevolent Society in 1910. In the House of Lords he spoke vigorously on the question of enemy banks in London, and at the British Empire Union, of which he was an active supporter, on German enemies in England. A Medieval Curse. The late peer belonged to a Scottish family who, according to ancient tradition, lay under a curse which banned direct succession from father to son. Lord Leith's only son died in South Africa, and his grandson, Lieutenant Burn, was killed in Belgium in 1914. Tradition says that the curse was laid on Fyvie Castle in the thirteenth century by Thomas the Rhymer, the Scottish poet and prophet, who was once turned away from Fyvie Castle when he visited it dressed as a beggar. The curse is that there will be no male heir until a stone which was thrown into the river there is recovered. The stone is said to be one of those of a ruined abbey of which the castle was built. No owner of Fyvie Castle has ever been succeeded by his son since that time, and the peerage is now extinct. His daughter married, in 1891, Colonel Sir C. R. Burn, late M.P. for Torquay.