GRETNA GREEN REGISTER.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143770, 19 April 1912, Page 3

GRETNA GREEN REGISTER.

The famous salerooms in London have harboured many strange curios and relics of bygone years, hut few of the lots that have been sold at auction in tho metropolis have been more remarkable than one that was advertised for sale a few weeks ago. This was an original register of marriages celebrated in the famous Dumfries parish of Gretna Green between 1825 and 1845. This remarkable volume contains tho certificates signed by the brides and bridegrooms ami their witnesses, together with the signature in each case of John Linton, the obliging celebrant of these marriages of the early nineteenth century. Many of tho certificates recall very interesting memories. There is one relating to the marriage of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a grandson of the dramatist, and Maria Grant daughter and heiress of Lieut-enant-General Sir Colquhonn Grant, a gentleman who was known to fame a century ago. The record of the marriage of Captain Francis Lovell to Lady Rose Caroline Mary Somerset, a noted beauty, is contained in the register. The signatures of Lord Dnimlanrig, who became the seventh Marquis of Queensbury, and Miss Caroline Clayton recall tho story of an elopement that was more than a nine days’ wonder, the lovers abandoning the traditional post-chaise and making the arduous journey from Surrey to Scotland on horseback. The records contain the names of Captain Ibhctson and Lady Adda Corisande Maud Villiers, daughter of the Earl of Jersey. Lady Adela followed the example of her grandmother, a daughter of the founder of Child’s Bank, who was married at Gretna Green to. Lord Westmorland. The story of their pursuit by the angry banker, who gave up the thase only after one of his horses had been shot by his prospective son-in-law, is one of tins most famous in the annals of Grotnn Green. Curiously enough the certificate Vif Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s marriage on March C, 1826, to the sixteon-ycar-old heiress Ellen Turner is missing from the register. but the volume is an almost complete record of tho marriages celebrated by Linton, who is said to have had by far the most prosperous of tho “marrying businesses” that wore carried on “over the border.”