GLAMOUR OF A TITLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20792, 7 February 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

GLAMOUR OF A TITLE.

AMERICAN WEDDING SEQUEL. GROOM DENIES DECEPTION. . ' i PANDERING TO RELATIVES. All the United States is laughing at a hoax, the. most remarkable in recent years, which a dashing English " aristocrat " has just played on the 6000 residents of Oxford, Massachusetts, wrote the New York correspondent of a don paper, on December 18. Continuing, the correspondent " Tho man is really a clerk' on a British liner. Posing as Sir William Harold Bramwell, Commander in tho King's Navy, he captivated the whole town and crowned his triumph by marrying the belle of Oxford, Miss Barbara Buffum. State troopers formed an archway of swords for the bridal pair, and the whole town turned out to cheer. The man concerned was Mr. Harold Bramwell, but, on arriving at Southampton in his ship, the Mauretania, he denied that he had posed <as a titled person. There is not the slightest truth' in tho suggestion that I masqueraded _as a titled person," he declared. "It is true that I have not always done this kind of work, but I have never represented myself to bo anythiug but a steward's clerk. Indeed, I met my wife when she

was a passenger in this ship, and I was then in a still.lower rating than the one I hold now " Does any one think I could have carried out this alleged deception in such circumstances ? But you know these Americans. They do love a tjtle. They love ceremony and pomp. I may have been described on the marriage register as " Sir William.' I did not look to see. My address may have been given as Bramwell Hall. The invitation cards may even havo described me as ' Sir William.' I did not see one of them. I left all the arrangement to my wife's parents. I have lived in a better social sphere than the one I am living in to-dav," he added, " but I am no mystery knight." Disappearance of Bride. While Mr. Bramwell was giving an tcrview in Southampton, Mrs. Bramwell made a sensational disappearance from the State hospital at Worcester, Massachusetts, to which she was taken for observation after her marriage. Clad only in her night clothes, she dropped 18ft. from the window into the hospital grounds, and vanished. She is believed to havo had an accomplice in a motorcar.

Tho brido blames it all on certain of her rolativcs, who-were anxious to climb socially. "He is tho innocent victim of certain members of my family who wanted it to appear that ho was a titled person," she declared. " They thought it would add to their social prestige to havo a nobleman in tho family. My husband was angry when ho was called ' Sir Bramwoll' at tho wedding reception. He certainly gave no colour to the story, though of courso everybody at Oxford believed that was duo to his modesty." It is now disclosed that the bridegroom signed his marriage licence as Mr. Harold Bramwoll with no titlo attached. Ho gave his age as AO, and described himself simply as a nativo of Cantorbury, and tho son of Frederick John and Patricia Havelock Bramwoll. Tho church at Oxford was crowded dining the marriage ceremony, and tho wholo town was agog with stories of how tho couple would be presented at Court and spend their honeymoon on tho " baronet's " ancestral -estate in Coventry. A special escort of motor-cycle police was even provided fol- the wedding party. According to another message the bride declares that the whole thing was a joke played on her " high hat " relatives, who had insisted upon her having a titled husband. Her husband, sho says, was no party to the joke. . Mr. Bramwoll is leaving the sea shortly and will join his bride in Amorica.