PEERAGE OR FORTUNE

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14601, 26 February 1921, Page 14 (Supplement)

PEERAGE OR FORTUNE

TWIN HEIRS TO CHOOSE. One of the must adventurous careers on record has been closed by the death of Lord Fermoy at Artillery Mansions, Westminster. It is barely two months since the decease of the late peer's brother, the second baron, whom he succeeded in the title, was recorded. .lame? Boothby Burke Roche, third Lord Fermoy, was born in July, 1851. His failier was M.P. for Cork County from 1837 to 1855, and for Mnrylebone from 1855 to 1869, and was crc-

atcd Baron Fermoy in the Peerage of Ireland in 1856. His mother was Eliza Caroline, eldesl daughter 'if •lames R. Bonthhy. of TwyTord Abbey, Middlesex, ami he was Hip SPCOnd child in a family nf live sons and Hire-? daughters. Me had .in astonishingly adventurous career, He led revolutions in South America, fought 'led Indians in the "Wild West," searched for gold in Klondyke, and oil in Texas, and performed a daring feat in taking a fast torpedo boat, from the Thames to Libau fur a wager of £SOO, risking severe penalties if he had been eaught. Lord Fermoy was probably the only man who has lived for nearly half a century after the erection of a tombstone In his memory. The memorial stands mil in Montana, placed there by his mother, following a non-return from an expedition against, the Indians, fitted mil by the United Slates Government in the early seventies. lie returned to find himself sorrowed for as dead, and hastened In explain that he had merely gone slralght'from the fight on a loop: limiting expedition in Wyoming- Lord Fermoy was an M.A. of Cambridge, and s.il lis Nationalist M.P. for Easl Kerry for .1 short period between 1896 and 1900. Up married, in 1880, Frances, eldest daughter of F. Work, of New York, who obtained an American divorce in 1891, and there have been issue of the marriage twin >"iis and two daughters. His son Edmund Maurice, who is heir, owing lo Ihe fael thai he was born one minute before his twin brother, Ins not vrl decided whether he will accepl the peerage. Should ho do so he will run the risk of losing a larße fortune left him by his American grandfather, Mr Frank Work. Mr Work became intensely anti-British as a result of the marital troubles of his daughter, and when lie died nine years ago il was found that he had left £600.000 to each of the twins, on condition thai they became American citizens, within a year of his death, and kept a permanent legal residence In the United St.iios. Ho also forbade bis daughter and her children ever to visit. England again. The latter provision of the will was disregarded.