SYDNEY DIVORCE SUIT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18972, 25 March 1924, Page 5

SYDNEY DIVORCE SUIT

~ -w COMING CAUSE CELEBRE NOTED WEALTHY PAIR. HUSBAND’S HUGE INCOME. (N.Z. Herald Special.) SYDNEY, March 13. The pending divorce action between Mr. Lebbeus Hordern, youngest brother of Sir Samuel Hodem, and his wife is already exciting Sydney society, though it may be several months before the * 1 cause celebre” is listed for hearing in court.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Lebbeus Hordern are young, well-known, and handsome; the bride herself was wealthy, and the bridegroom is tremendously rich. Dramatic developments of a romance framed in the most luxurious setting are promised as the divorce action proceeds.

The service last week of a petition for divorce upon Mrs. Hordern from her husband was a climax to a long history of marital differences, which had already been in legal dispute. Mr. and Mrs. Hodern were married in Sydney in October, 1912, and their son was born in April, 1914. But, in June, 1919, after initial steps in legal conflict, a deed of separation was drawn up between husband and wife. By this deed Mr. Hordern agreed to allow his wife £BOOO a year clear of State or Federal income tax. This is the largest allowance to a wife ever known in Australia. Its tax-free character makes it higher than the £9OOO a year granted to Lady Dudley, who sued Lord Dudley afterwards on the question of liability to taxation. Mr. Hordern, a grandson of the founder of the great business of An thony Hordern and Sons, Ltd., has an income estimated at £lOO,OOO a year. He has been a princely patron of art, and from one visit to Europe is reputed to have returned with about £30,000 worth of pictures and statuary. He is, moreover, a studious man. He reads economics, and can quote from many authorities' on the relation between capital and labour. But he was never inclined to enter actively into big business. He is now wholly dissociated from business in connection with the giant firm. Keenly interested at that time in aviation, when the war began he presented a seaplane to the navy, and it went away in H.M.A.S. Australia. In 1921 he lent a seaplane for a survey of the eastern coast. He himself had bought but never used it. Finally Mr. Hordern tired altogether of his hobby. His ’planes are now packed away in parts. Of late years Mr. Hordern has been rather a recluse.

Mrs. Hordern was before her marriage Miss Olga Monie, one of the society beauties of the day. Her father, who was a railway contractor, was educated at Wesley College, Melbourne, becoming in his later years there captain of the school. When he died, after a successful business career, his estate was proved at over £BO,OOO. Miss Olga Monie spent the formative years of her life at the Loretto Convent, Sydney. She had not long been out in the social world when, at the ago of 20, in 1912, she was married to Mr. Hordern at St. Mary’s Homan Catholic Cathedral. During the brief period which separated her school days from her married life she was one of the handsomest and most popular girls in Sydney society. After the estrangement from her husband, she left Sydney in August, 1919, taking, her boy with her. She visited Egypt, England, and then travelled extensively in Europe and America. She came back to Sydney in June, 1922, by. herself. She had left her son at school in Pans. She was here for several months but went abroad again. She stayed away until her arrival on the R.M.S. Maloja last week.