FRIEND TRICKED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23381, 24 June 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

FRIEND TRICKED

Titled Ex-convict's Death Recalls ONE', of the most sensational criminal trials of the last century is recalled by the announcement of the death at his London house of Lord William Nevill, son of the first Marquis of Abergavenny, and uncle of the present Marquis, states the News of the World. He was 79, and had lived in retirement for many years. He is survived by his wife.

lIKE a number of young men of the 'eighties and 'nineties, Lord William led an extravagant life and; found himself in financial difficulties. Then came the scheme which landed him in the dock at the Old Bailey in 1898 on a charge of obtaining money by false pretences. The sequel was a sentence of five years' penal servitude. A young subaltern in the Guards, and the heir to a great fortune, Lieutenant Spender-Clay (he was Conservative M.P. for Tollbridge when he died in 1937) was induced by Lord William at a merry house-party at Ascot to sign a document which no did not see. Concealed Document Lord William, it was stated, pretended that the concealed document was a deed made necessary by a pending divorce s,fleeting his own sister. On this plea he asked his young friend to trust his "honour" and not to insist 011 seeing the body of the document. The .document was actually a moneylender's promissory note lor £11,113 los. j Jn due course the moneylender sued Lieutenant Spender-Clay. A criminal prosecution of Lord William followed, and he was charged with forgery and fraud. . During the course of the trial, at which Lord William pleaded guilty in respect of counts charging him with misdemeanour, the judge put his transactions with moneylenders at about £BO,OCO. In a book which he wrote about his prison experiences, Lord William likened seven weeks in Wormwood Scrubs to seven years, and declared that if he had not been visited by a priest at the critical moment he believed he would have smashed everything in his cell. When he was transferred to Parkhurst, he had to begin with nine months' "separate confinement" —one hour a day exercise, and the other 23 hours alone in his cell. He wrote oi this: "The soliitude and hopeless monotony, without anything to think of but the long years of suffering and disgrace ahead, produce nervous irritation, approaching in some cases a

frenzy, and instead of softeninrr a bring out all the evil there is In him* .I" 1 ( J07 Lord William Nevill fiZL m another sensational fraud clnr™ known as "The Black Diamonds Case when he was charged at Westminster with stealing jewellery valued at £4OO from a pawnbroker by means of a trick. It was alleged that a sealed bor containing pieces of coal wrapped in tissue paper was substituted f or a similar box in which jewels were• deposited i»i pawn. It was stated that Mr. AVilliam Fitch, the prosecutor was handed at Lord William's house in Pelgrave Square what he believed to he a small box secured with seals and tape, in which were the jewels, but bv some extraordinary manipulation an other box already prepared had been substituted. When ' the box was opened—when the pledge was not redeemed— it - found to contain only two lumps'of coal. For this offence Lord William was sentenced to one year's imprison, ment. Jn 1934, Lord William Nevill described as- of Onslow Gardens, South Kensington, was bound over at "West London on a summons charging him with publishing a defamatory libel con- ' corning his former butler. In his youth. Lord William went into business. He secured a nosiM™ in the office of the firm of tho 2 qins de Santurce, a Spanish nobleman and fell in love with the daughter his wealthy employer. Melba's Legacy Their wedding in London, in 1889 was one of the social events of the season, and was attended by King Ed. ivard the Seventh, when' Prince of Wales. During his imprisonment, his'wife it was recorded, "stood resolutely bv him" and visited him ou everypos. sible occasion. Lord William was Aide-de-Camp to the Duke of Marlborough when he wa* Viceroy of Ireland. In 1929, when he was 69, Lord Wi]. liam fell in alighting from an omni* bus and fractured his thigh. Until then lie had been a particularly active man but since the accident he was more or less a cripple, suffering mtenso pain. 5 V When Dame Nellie JMelba died in 1931 she left a legacy of £IOOO to Lord and Lady William Nevifi,#-