BARONET IN GAOL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23884, 11 August 1939, Page 6

BARONET IN GAOL

STILL THREE YEARS TO SERVE TRAGEDY OF A FAMILY (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY. Aug. 3. Australia has a convict baronet. He is Sir Frederick James Siddartha Affleck, who became the ninth holder . of the title on the death last week of his 83-year-old father, who had lived In Queensland for 50 years. The new baronet and his brother, Dalham Robert Affleck, were sentenced in Brisbane a few months ago to four years’ imprisonment for robbery and blackmail. Sir Frederick has given notice of appeal against his conviction. ■! In an interview at the gaol, the new baronet told of the family’s . misforr tunes, and said he hoped to go to England to take up the title when he was free. ■ He also hoped to become an author. “Naturally, 1 do not intend to get Into trouble again, and I am exceedingly proud of the family from which I have descended,” he said. , ‘‘There is very little I can say about, my title except that it is an old one and that •T am. the ninth in ’the line of succession. My father always regretted that our family estate passed into the hands of-strangers. Things would " have been different for him and probably for us had Dalham Hall not been . sold for £IOO,OOO when the family -.fortune of, £200.000 was lost by ' fraud.” The eighth baronet, Sir Frederick

Danby James Affleck. survived his reverses tvith the pride of an aristocrat, but it was a great shock to him when his. boys Frederick and Dalham were sentenced. It was the crowning sorrow of his life, The new baronet was ill in the gaol hospital on the day of his father’s funeral, but his brother was permitted to follow the hearse to the cemetery, with his aged mother. In the front seat of their car sat a warder. In a car behind was a policeman in plain clothes. Interviewed after sht had accompanied her younger son back to the gaol, the dowager Lady Affleck said she used the name of ‘Mrs Handford ” to preclude discussion of the title. Her husband, she said, was proud of his lineage, and insisted that people use his title.

The baronetcv of the Afflecks of Dalham Hall, Dalham, Suffolk. England, was bestowed for valour. The first baronet. Rear-admiral Sir Edmund Affleck, was with the famous Rodney in his naval battle against the French under Count de Grasse in 1782 This battle saved Jamaica and ruined French naval prestige and delighted England set about honouring the victors. Foremost among the heroes was Edmund Affleck: he was created a baronet. • "

When the present baronet comes out of gaol he will have no fine estate to sustain him. Many years ago the Afflecks lost £200,000 in the fradulent dealings of a firm of, solicitors and to recover from the . loss the fourth baronet sold his magiflcent estate of Dalham Hall for £IOO,OOO. From then on, the family declined in its wealth, apd when the late Sir Fredric Danby Affleck came to Australia he was a cadet officer in a shipping line.