FARM-HAND BARONET

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23661, 21 May 1940, Page 10

FARM-HAND BARONET

300 YEAR-OLD TITLE MARRIAGE TO HOUSEMAID [from our own correspondent] LONDON, April 20 "I expect I shall stick to the land," Sir John Fagge, 29-year-old farmworker baronet, who has just succeeded to a title which goes back nearly 300 years, stated to-day. His wage on a fruit and hop farm at Faversham, in Kent, is less than £2 a week, and lie is to marry a housemaid at Sittingbourne, Miss Ivy Frier. Sir John had only five months' schooling in his life. He was delicate as a child and could not attend regularly. Once upon a time the Fagges were large landowners and many of them were M.P.'s. The new Sir John, 11th baronet, docs not know when the family fortunes disappeared. He never even met his uncle, wboni he succeeded and who lived most of his life in the United States. His other uncle, the ninth baronet, who lived at Dover and died in 1930, left £2868. The present Sir John's father was a railway clerk, lie died only three weeks after his wife, leaving John an orphan when ho was a small boy. After this double bereavement young John lived with his grandmother, Mrs. Wise, who had a small market garden. He helped her to grow the vegetables and to sell them round Faversham. This Sir John is the sixth Sir John Fagge in succession.