Peerage Gallery

Sir Claude and Lady Champion de Crespigny, Tatler cover

Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, 4th Baronet (1847-1935), soldier, sportsman and adventurer, pictured on the front cover of The Tatler in 1927 beside his wife, Lady Champion de Crespigny at Champion Lodge, Maldon, Essex. Sir Claude's life reads like that of a fictional Victorian action hero. After a military career, he became expert in a number of sports. As a ballooning enthusiast he was the first man to cross the North Sea in 1883. He was also a big-game hunter, a fearless diver, canoeist, sailor and swimmer (becoming the first European to swim the Nile rapids in 1889) and as a jockey, he rode his last steeplechase at the age of 67. Unsurprisingly, his maxim in life was, Where there is a daring deed to be done in any part of the world, an Englishman should leap to the front to accomplish it. In 1872, he married Georgina McKerrel with whom he had five sons and four daughters. Date: 1927

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Lady Loughborough (Sheila Chisholm) with her baby

Margaret Sheila Mackellar Chisholm, daughter of Harry Chisholm of Sydney, NSW, Australia married in 1915 Francis Edward Scudamore St Clair-Erskine, Lord Loughborough, eldest son of the fifth Earl of Rosslyn who was serving in the King's Royal Rifles at the time this picture was taken. The marriage suffered from Loughborough's drinking and gambling and the couple divorced in 1926. In 1920, Albert, Duke of York, the future King George VI was linked romantically with Sheila who, at that point, was still a married woman. She married secondly in 1928, Sir John Millbanke, eleventh baronet (d. 1947) and thirdly, Prince Dimitri Romanoff of Russia in 1954. She died in 1969. Pictured in The Tatler with her elder son, Anthony Hugh Francis Harry St. Clair-Erskine, the future 6th Earl of Rosslyn (born 18th May 1917, died 1977). Date: 1917

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

The Marquis of Anglesey

Henry Cyril Paget, 5th Marquess of Anglesey Bt, (16 June 1875 14 March 1905), styled Lord Paget until 1880 and Earl of Uxbridge between 1880 and 1898, and nicknamed "Toppy", British peer, notable during his short life for squandering his inheritance on a lavish social life and accumulating massive debts. Regarded as the "black sheep" of the family, he was dubbed "the dancing marquess" for his habit of performing "sinuous, sexy, snake-like dances". He converted the chapel at the family's country seat of Plas Newydd, Anglesey, into a 150-seat theatre, named the Gaiety Theatre. Here he took the lead role, opulently costumed, in productions ranging from pantomime and comedy to performances of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband and Shakespeare's Henry V. For three years he took his company on tour around Britain and Europe. Date: 1904

© Mary Evans Picture Library