LORD SUED.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20614, 15 May 1935, Page 1

LORD SUED.

Actress’s Action for Breach of Promise Fails. LOVE-LETTERS EXCHANGED United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received May 15, 11.30 a.m ) LONDON. May 14. Angela Joyce, the actress and Miss England beauty competition winner in 1928, sued Lord Revelstoke for a breach of prpmise. The jury, including three women, returned a verdict for the defendant. Miss Joyce, in evidence, stated that they met casually in a cocktail bar in 1931, before Lord Revelstoke succeeded to the title. She was then twentyfour years of age and Lord Revelstoke was nineteen. While a Cambridge undergraduate, he broke the college rules and met her thrice weekly in the evenings. They exchanged ardent letters almost daily. He proposed verbally. Subsequently he 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 when he was over twenty-one. Subsequently he broke his promise and married the present Lady Revelstoke. The defence claimed that all of Lord Revelstoke’s love-letters were written before he was twenty-one.

Lord Revelstoke, in giving evidence, said he had never proposed. 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 young strangers to meet in a cocktail bar and thereafter lunch and dine frequently, is that likely to result in perfect domesticity? Boys fall in love, but infatuations cool off. Few men marry the first woman to whom they declare their love.” Lord Revelstoke left the Court accompanied by his wife, who was present during the trial.