THE LAST OF A LANCASHIRE PEERAGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2686, 6 September 1905, Page 75

THE LAST OF A LANCASHIRE PEERAGE.

The death took place the other day at Bradgate House, Leicestershire, of Catherine, Countess of Stamford and Warrington. Married to the seventh Earl in 1855, as his second wife, she outlived him by no less than 21 years, and although the Stamford peerage, in default of an heir, reverted to another branch of the Grey family, she retained the Enville Hall (Staffordshire) and the Bradgate estates, in both of which neighbourhoods she made herself dearly loved by reason of her generosity and benefactions to the poor and to charities.

Enville Hall, so recently the scene of a great fire, was remarkable for its gardens and fountains, on the style of those at Versailles. To Lancashire people it is particularly interesting to recall that witU the Countess's death the last will be heard of the Warrington peerage. This was conferred on the fifth Earl, and as the seventh Earl and Countess just deceased had no heir, only the older peerage could revert to the descendants of the fourth Earl, and Catherine was the last Countess of Warrington. Associated with the Warrington peerage was a seat at Dunham Massey Park, Knutsford. The fire at Enville Hall was a great shock to the deceased peeress, who had only a short time removed (as it proved for the last time) from her Staffordshire seat to Leicestershire. She had been a virtual invalid for two years, and labLivy had kept her bed entirely. The peerage has been full of romances, not the least interesting of which was the career of the eighth Earl, the Rev. Harry Grey, whose boast it was' that he had never enter^l the House of Lords. He lived in South Africa for "40 years, where he was married three times. One of his wives was of mixed Kaifir and Dutch Mood, this ceremony taking place just 12 months before he succeeded to the peerage.