The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife and the Missing Corpse

by Piu Marie Eatwell

  Coburn had been inclined to give the carpenter from Brighton short shrift, when he first appeared in his Melbourne office asking for his help. In fact, he could barely hear out his fanciful tale of double lives and dukedoms. But when, some weeks later, George Hollamby returned to Coburn’s office, claiming to have received a confidential offer of £50,000 to settle the case from the leading Melbourne law firm of Blake & Riggal, acting on behalf of an undisclosed person, Coburn changed his mind. The sum of £50,000 was, quite simply, enormous (equivalent to £5.1 million in today’s money). Although it was never openly admitted, it was generally understood that Blake & Riggal were acting on behalf of the 6th Duke of Portland. If this was indeed the case, the fact that the duke was prepared to make such a substantial offer to settle the matter showed just how desperate he was to be rid of it. Clearly, the 6th Duke of Portland was taking George Hollamby’s claim seriously. All of which meant that Thomas Coburn began to take the case very seriously indeed.

  The more Coburn looked into the Druce case, the more excited he became. There was, he was sure, something in it. The only solution was to travel to England, and stake a claim. Coburn therefore threw his energy into raising funds from his powerful Melbourne business colleagues. Soon, he had collected sufficient money to buy tickets for the pair to set sail for England to investigate further. Coburn’s obsession with the Druce case was such that he had even christened his two-month-old son, whom he had left behind in Melbourne with the rest of his family, Alan Thomas Druce Coburn. Perhaps, on the other hand, he had not a great deal to lose. The reality was that Coburn had already been bankrupted on several occasions. Hanging around the courthouse of Dandenong, in the suburbs of Melbourne, in the hope of picking up a brief, was hardly the greatest of vocations.

  At home, Coburn was viewed with a certain amount of scepticism. ‘His career has been rather a chequered one,’ observed the Melbourne finance agent, J. Howden. ‘He is very clever and smooth-spoken, but is regarded with suspicion here, and is considered unreliable.’ But Thomas Kennedy Vernon Coburn was not one to harbour self-doubts. He was certain that he had been made for a grander fate than to frequent provincial Australian courthouses. In his eyes, the ticket he had purchased on the Orient Line to London was, without a doubt, the route to greater glories.

  A great hustle and bustle arose as the Oroya finally hit the London docks. George Hollamby and Coburn were immediately caught up in the tide of excited passengers who swarmed onto the deck, weeping and waving to relatives fluttering white handkerchiefs on the quayside. Stevedores rolled out crates and cargo, and the ship’s horn sounded imminent disembarkation with a long, low boom. Coburn stepped forward eagerly. George Hollamby, however, held back. A lurking fear gnawed at the back of his mind. There was something that he had buried, a secret that he ought to have told his financial backers, but had not divulged to them. He knew that it would come back to haunt him.

  But what a strangely mysterious land is Australia.Rightly has she been called ‘the land of the dawning,’ since she is yet enfolded in the mists of early morning, and her future destiny looms vague and gigantic… dwelling in a solitude that is akin to desolation, with no knightly legend or tender sentiment of romantic story to soothe or charm the ear.

  VENI COOPER-MATHIESON,

  A Marriage of Souls: A Metaphysical Novel

  The woman hesitated before the heavy black door with its bulbous brass knocker protruding like the knuckle of a fist. She could just glimpse, through the glass door panes, an entrance hall with a staircase that opened in a majestic curve onto a dark expanse of plush blue carpet, the polished handrail set imposingly on a dark green, heavily wrought cast-iron balustrade. She glanced nervously at the slip of paper she clutched in her hand: 65 London Wall. Yes, this was the correct address. Taking a deep breath, she entered the gloom of the vestibule, where a shadow was just visible behind a polished mahogany reception desk.

  ‘Good morning. I have an appointment at the offices of Mr George Hollamby Druce.’ The woman’s voice was soft but steady, with an Antipodean lilt.

  ‘Second floor,’ came the mechanical reply.

  The woman commenced the slow climb up the sweeping staircase. She was perhaps forty-odd years old, pale, with aquiline features that defined her as handsome rather than pretty. At the second floor, she paused, then pushed open the heavy door on the landing. Two men awaited her.

  ‘Mrs Gibson, I presume?’ The taller and more confident-looking of the two men stepped forward, proffering his hand. ‘Thomas Vernon Coburn.’ Then, turning to his companion, he said – pronouncing the words slowly, as if to mark with due emphasis the solemnity of the moment – ‘This, Madam, is George Hollamby Druce. Otherwise known as his Grace, the Duke of Portland.’

  ‘Good morning, Sir… I mean, Your Grace.’ The woman paused, somewhat confused. She was unsure of the etiquette required of a ducal introduction. Was one expected to curtsey? Fortunately for her, however, his Grace appeared to be as uncomfortable with ceremony as she was herself. A craggy man with rough-hewn features, a handlebar moustache and the gnarled hands of a labourer, the would-be duke appeared ill at ease in his imposing surroundings. This was in marked contrast to his more poised companion, who looked entirely at home.

  Thomas Coburn – for it was he who did most of the talking – explained that he and his client were much obliged to Mrs Gibson for coming to see them. Her husband Earlam Gibson, an esteemed friend and legal colleague of theirs, had mentioned that his wife was a stenographer by profession, and owned a typewriter. This was a happy chance, as they were looking for an amanuensis to type out and send correspondence on behalf of G. H. Druce, Ltd, the company which he and George Hollamby had set up in 1905 as a vehicle for raising funds to prepare and pursue the Druce claim in court.*1 Would she be willing to work in their office, for around 30 shillings to £2 a week?

  Amanda Gibson had been expecting this. Her husband, Earlam, was a New Zealand lawyer down on his luck, who had arrived in England from Australia in 1906 and had tried – unsuccessfully – to make it at the London Bar. He had recently visited George Hollamby and Thomas Coburn after seeing them advertise for a lawyer in the newspapers, in the hope of getting a job. Although they had turned him down with the explanation that they needed an English and not a New Zealand lawyer, they had expressed an interest in offering a job to his wife. Not that Amanda Malvina Thorley-Gibson was exactly thrilled at the prospect of a post as a secretary. Her real aspirations were much loftier. She wanted to become a writer and leader of the New Thought movement in Australia, as famous as Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science movement in America. The New Thought movement, which swept the world in the early twentieth century, questioned the old faiths. It contained the beginnings of a novel belief system: the cult of secular spiritualism, of seeking success through personal fulfilment, the triumph of mind over matter. Amanda Gibson had already written a book outlining her beliefs. It was called A Marriage of Souls: A Metaphysical Novel. She had brought the manuscript to England with her, in the hope of finding a publisher. Unfortunately for Amanda, however, her attempts at launching her literary career in England had so far proved as fruitless as her husband’s attempts to conquer the London Bar. So there seemed little choice but to accept the post as amanuensis for the Druce office.*2

  Despite her reluctance to take the job, Amanda was intrigued by the Druce case. The newspapers in Australia had filled their columns with the story of the aristocratic bushman from the Antipodes. More importantly, a central tenet of her own beliefs – in common with many leaders of the New Thought movement – was that the New World would one day rescue the Old World from its corrupt and decadent ways. George Hollamby seemed rather an attractive candidate for a prospective Second Messiah: red-blooded and rugged, from the depths of the Australian bush, he presented a marked contrast to the effete and degenerate aristocracy of the Old World.

  On 25 March 1907, therefore, Amanda Gibson began work as an amanuensis for the Druce claimants at 65 L
ondon Wall. These were hectic times. Not a day went by without the sending out of a press release, reporting on the most recent developments in the Druce affair. Every day, journalists besieged the company’s doors for the latest news of the case. G. H. Druce, Ltd, had been formed with the assistance of John Crickmer, Elizabeth Crickmer’s nephew, son of her brother Charles. John had gone as a boy to the Baker Street Bazaar, to collect his Aunt Elizabeth’s weekly allowance from T. C. Druce. Now, he was a respected City stockbroker. George Hollamby had assigned to G. H. Druce, Ltd, all his rights in the outcome of the case, so that subscribing shareholders would receive a stake in the winnings if his claim to the dukedom was successful. Coburn and George Hollamby had already raised funds for their initial trip to England in 1903 in this way, by establishing similar fund-raising enterprises in Australia. G. H. Druce, Ltd, was followed by the incorporation in 1907 of the Druce-Portland Company and the New Druce-Portland Company. These, like their predecessor, were formed to promote and fund the claims of George Hollamby to the Portland dukedom.

  From the beginning of her employment, the hard-pressed Amanda had much to occupy her time. Letters poured in daily to the offices of G. H. Druce, Ltd, from all over the world: general inquiries, would-be subscribers requesting prospectuses or shares, existing shareholders seeking news about when the case was due to come to court. There was also a constant stream of visitors to the office. Members of the company’s committee were the most frequent in attendance. There was a lawyer called Mr Fearnley, who was the company secretary and an old acquaintance of George Druce’s from a solicitor’s office in Melbourne; a sharp-looking English solicitor called Edmund Kimber, the leading evidence-gatherer, who always seemed to be in a terrible hurry; and an Australian mining engineer named Francis Coles, an old acquaintance of Coburn’s from Melbourne, and one of the principal fund-raisers for the company in the City. Everybody, naturally, respectfully addressed George Druce as ‘his Grace’. Francis Coles and a grave-faced businessman in his fifties by the name of Alfred Suart were the initial – and principal – investors in the company. Coles and Suart had made an advance to Druce and Coburn in exchange for a £500,000 bond,*3 redeemable within six months of Druce coming into the Portland millions. When G. H. Druce, Ltd, was formed, they exchanged the bond for shares in the company.

  Francis Coles was an indefatigable advocate for the Druce case. He organized a petition to the Home Office to have the grave opened, collecting hundreds of signatures. He even had the audacity to offer shares in the company to the Duke of Portland himself, arguing that the duke would be wise to hedge himself against defeat in the case against him. (The duke’s solicitors, somewhat unsportingly, declined the share offer.)

  Alfred Suart, the second principal investor in G. H. Druce, Ltd, along with Coles, was a wealthy merchant and ship-owner, a pioneer in the oil industry and a major City figure. Amanda recalled how Suart had at first been highly sceptical of the Druce claim, demanding that his solicitor attend a meeting with Druce and Coburn to form a view as to the credibility of the case. The solicitor’s opinion was that it must be proved, beyond all doubt, that the claim of George Hollamby to the dukedom was not scuppered by any prior claim. And here lay George Hollamby’s guilty secret, which had haunted him on the day of his first landing in England, back in 1903.

  In setting forth his case to investors in Australia and the City of London, George Hollamby had been less than candid about the existence of a possible rival to his claimed title. From the very beginning, he had implied that his deceased father George was the eldest son of T. C. Druce. When he had intervened in Mrs Druce’s action before the probate court as long ago as 1900, for example, George Hollamby’s application to the court had described his father as ‘the eldest son of Thomas Charles Druce by his marriage with Elizabeth Crickmer, his first wife’. And yet Elizabeth Crickmer had borne two sons before George Hollamby’s father, George: Henry Thomas and Charles Crickmer. The eldest son, Henry Thomas, had died in a shipwreck as a boy. However, the second son, Charles Crickmer (who, like George, had emigrated to Australia), had married and had a son, Charles George; and Charles George himself had had a son, Charles Edgar. Although Charles Crickmer and Charles George were now dead, Charles Edgar was alive and living in Sydney. On the face of it, as a surviving direct lineal descendant of Charles Crickmer Druce, Charles Edgar would take precedence over George Hollamby in the matter of inheriting a title. And yet, both Charles Crickmer’s and Charles Edgar’s names had been excluded from prospectuses issued by George Hollamby and Thomas Coburn, when they made their fund-raising applications to City investors.

  George Hollamby’s misgivings about his having withheld the information about Charles Crickmer’s and Charles Edgar’s existence were well founded. When, after prolonged cross-questioning by the lawyers, he finally admitted that his father George had not been T. C. Druce’s eldest son, City investors were furious. Many stormed away in disgust. John Crickmer’s own firm of stockbrokers, who had at first agreed to invest in the case, now refused to pay the bills presented to them.

  How well Amanda remembered George Hollamby’s reaction to the naming of Charles Edgar as a possible rival! His response, whenever his cousin’s name was mentioned, was to fly into an uncontrollable rage. When he had calmed down enough to speak, he shocked his audience with a new revelation. Charles Crickmer Druce, the second son of T. C. Druce, George claimed, had in fact been illegitimate. He was the son not of Elizabeth Crickmer but of her sister, Mary (the sister who had witnessed Elizabeth’s marriage to T. C. Druce before the Reverend Stocking, in October 1816). According to George Hollamby, T. C. Druce – the inveterate philanderer – had broken one of the strictest taboos by carrying on an illicit liaison with his wife’s own sister, shortly after his marriage. Could this extraordinary story be true? If it was, then George Hollamby was indeed the legitimate and rightful heir to any titles held by T. C. Druce, his cousin Charles Edgar being barred by the illegitimacy of his grandfather, Charles Crickmer. Certainly, there were strange incidents which would tend to support George Hollamby’s case. There was, for example, the odd addition of ‘Crickmer’ as Charles’ middle name (not replicated for the other Druce children by Elizabeth Crickmer), and the fact that Charles had received nothing in T. C. Druce’s will. George Druce alone had received a legacy. This surely implied that he was T. C. Druce’s only surviving legitimate son from his first marriage, and that Charles Crickmer and William (the gamekeeper’s son) were illegitimate. In deposition evidence given in Australia, Charles Crickmer’s daughter, Mrs Fanny Hughes, mentioned that she had heard her father and Uncle George speak of a ‘short time between their births’, and laugh over it.

  The contention that T. C. Druce’s second son Charles Crickmer was illegitimate served the purposes of George Hollamby’s case admirably, save in one fatal respect: despite the circumstantial evidence, it could not be definitively proved. Realizing this difficulty, Thomas Coburn made despatch to Australia in order to secure a written undertaking from Charles Edgar in Sydney, that he would not dispute George Hollamby’s claim to the title. By an agreement of 17 April 1905, therefore, George Hollamby and Charles Edgar Druce agreed an equal division between them of any property recovered, if the identity of the 5th Duke of Portland with T. C. Druce was proved. Although the written assurance from Charles Edgar that he would not pursue a separate claim failed to persuade the more sceptical investors, others, including Alfred Suart, were now convinced there was a valid claim to the Portland dukedom. Suart, like other investors in the Druce-Portland Company, was especially impressed by a large photograph shown to him by George Hollamby, said to have been taken from a portrait of the 5th Duke, which had been in the Crickmer family for the last thirty years. The original of the photograph, it was claimed, had hung in Welbeck Abbey until it was destroyed by a fire. George Hollamby, in talks with potential investors, would habitually compare this photograph with an uncontested photograph of T. C. Druce, complete with a bushy beard: the beard, he claimed, was clea
rly false, and there was an uncanny resemblance between the two men. They could only be one and the same person.

  Suart was not the only eminent person who committed to the Druce case. The distinguished lawyer Thomas Edward Crispe, KC, was also a shareholder; and rumour had it that even an unidentified member of the Portland family held 1000 shares. Things did not, however, always run smoothly. One day, Amanda opened the door to an irate gentleman claiming to be a journalist by the name of John Sheridan, waving two commission notes in the air and demanding that George Hollamby recognize them. This George refused to do, and angrily turned him out. Later, he explained to Amanda that he and Coburn had granted an interest in the outcome of the case to Sheridan in exchange for raising funds, but he had not in fact raised one farthing to assist them.

  As well as dealing with those involved in the financial running of the company, Amanda was also required to assist those who were preparing the Druce case for court. These included the rarely seen and permanently preoccupied solicitor, Edmund Kimber, along with a smooth-talking man called Kenneth Henderson. Henderson was a journalist who told Amanda that he was a great-grandson of T. C. Druce through his beloved daughter Fanny. He was managing editor of a publication called The Idler, which had produced a number of pamphlets advertising the Druce case. He showed several of these to Amanda. One, entitled The Druce–Portland Case, was on sale to the public for sixpence, and had gone through dozens of impressions. It featured on its cover portraits of the 6th Duke of Portland and George Hollamby, accompanied by the caption, ‘Which is the Duke?’ It also displayed a photograph of Welbeck Abbey next to one of an Australian settler slab hut. The Idler pamphlets included contributions from an anonymous member of the Cavendish-Bentinck family, who – Henderson told Amanda – supported the Druce claim and would, when the time came, make their support known. These contributions were mysteriously attributed to ‘one who knows’. If Amanda had needed convincing about the validity of the Druce claim (which was doubtful, as she already fervently believed in it), the pamphlets fully persuaded her. Who, she reasoned, could question such plain and convincing evidence that Druce and the duke were one and the same?