PEER SUED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20109, 16 May 1935, Page 9

PEER SUED

BREACH OF PROMISE CASE FAILS United Press Association—By Electric Tel egraph —Copyright LONDON, May 14. Miss Angela Joyce, the actress and the winner, of the “Miss England” beauty competition in 1928, sued Lord Revelstoke for breach of promise. The jury, including three women, returned a verdict for the defendant. Miss Joyce in evidence, stated Lord Revelstoke and she met casually in a cocktail bar In 1931 before Lord Revelstoke succeeded to the title. She was then 24 and Lord Revelstoke 19. While 'he was an undergraduate at Cambridge he broke the College rules and met her thrice weekly in the evenings and they exchanged ardent letters almost daily. He proposed to her verbally, but subsequently told her that detectives were watching owing to his father’s objection to his association with an actress, adding that they had better part until he could shake off the detectives. Later he again proposed marriage when he was over 21, Subsequently he broke his promise and married the present Lady Revelstoke. The defence claimed that all Lord Revelstoke’s love-letters were written before he was 21.

Lord Revelstoke, giving evidence, said he had never proposed marriage to Miss Joyce. Mr Justice Swift, in summing up, said: “A man does not promise to marry by saying ‘You are the sweetest girl I ever knew.’ If it is the modern practice of youlig strangers to meet In a cocktail bar and thereafter lunch and dine frequently, is that likely to result in perfect domesticity? Boys fail in iove but their infatuations cool off. Few men marry the first woman to Whom they declare (heir love.” Lord Revelstoke leit the Court accompanied by his wife who was present during the trial.