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A bargain yesterday, I thought. The QSA to Mr Duncombe Jewell sold for a hammer price of GBP 1,097. Totals: GBP 1,413. R 31,240. AUD 2,590. NZD 2,820. CAD 2,360. USD 1,720. EUR 1,610

Picture courtesy of Medals and Memorabilia

QSA (2) Tugela Heights, Relief of Ladysmith (LIEUT. J.F.H. ST. CLAIRE-ERSKINE. THORNEYCROFT’S HORSE);
1887 Jubilee Medal

Obituary Ballymena Weekly Telegraph Saturday 19th August 1939

DEATH OF THE EARL OF ROSSLYN. – A MAN OF MANY PARTS – LOST £250,000 ON TURF – WAS FRIEND OF EDWARD VII.

The Earl Rosslyn died last week at his London home, aged 70. Society leader, actor, soldier, war correspondent, thrice a husband, friend of a king and a gambler for great stakes these were the characteristics Lord Rosslyn’s extraordinary career. Above all he was a gambler in the grandiose style associated with the Turf and the card rooms of thirty years ago. He squandered on his own estimate £250,000 in betting. He was a close friend of King Edward VII. when Prince of Wales until the friendship was broken following some of the earl’s escapades. Lord and Lady Rosslyn returned to London recently from a trip abroad, during which they travelled over 1,000 miles up the Amazon. Lord Rosslyn, who had a nervous breakdown on the way home, was ordered a complete rest. His breakdown was partly caused by reports that his daughter. Lady Mary Dunn, had had her foot bitten off by a crocodile. She had injured her foot and had been hunting crocodiles and the two incidents were connected. Lord and Lady Rosslyn travelled by a cargo ship and it was not until they reached Lisbon that they received a letter telling them the reports were untrue. Born on March 16, 1869, he was the fifth earl and after being at Eton and Oxford he succeeded to the title at the age of 21 on the death of his father. The fact that my father was stricken with paralysis when I was only 19 years of age,’ he once said, “must to certain extent account for many of my lapses

“£250 A YEAR AND DEBTS.” The death of his father was one of the turning points in his career. The fourth earl was a man of strict character. Before his father’s death Lord Rosslyn had, to use his own words “an income of £250 a year and his debts.” When the father died he found at the age of 21 that he had £171,000 a year and £50,000 “in the funds.” Writing in a book which he called “My Gamble With Life,” published by Messrs. Cassell, Lord Rosslyn said, “without hardly realising the small fortune I had been left X set to work to spend it. It was a truly liberal bequest to a son who had been living about £250 a year plus his debts and I took to racing soon after my father’s death,” In a few years he had squandered a fortune and he estimated his total turf losses at £250,000. He afterwards admitted that he had been “one of the biggest mugs.” He finally gave up betting in 1926. His most famous horse was Buccaneer which won the Ascot Gold Cup and other races. When he had the Gold Cup valued and found it to be worth only £330 instead of the £l,000 stated on the race card, he pointed out this fact to the Race Committee and in the following year £2,000 was added to the value of the race.

LOST BET OF £15,000 TO £60,000. He lost his biggest bet of £15,000 to £60,000 on Buccaneer for the Manchester Cup, but he won £15,000 when the horse ran io victory in the Great Ebor at York. At the time he was at home in Fife where his first wife was expecting their first child and he did not wish to be long away he chartered a special train to and from York in order to see the race. Once he brought off a great coup on the tables at Monte Carlo, where after losing £7,000 during a three months’ stay he drew fifty thousand francs from the bank for a last fling before I left for home and sanity.” In a few minutes he recovered all he had lost in the three preceding months. Lord Rosslyn gained the friendship of King Edward VII. —then Prince of Wales —largely through their joint love of the Turf. King Edward proposed the health of the bride and groom at the Earl’s first marriage in 1890.

HOW HE FELT KING’S DEATH. Writing in “My Gamble With Life,” he said:— “I think I felt the King’s death more than my father’s,” Going on the stage, but especially “my rotten second marriage,” caused a complete rupture of his friendship with the Prince. “It was only a few months before his death that my sister told me that he intended to forgive me and forget my follies. But his death left me still sorrowing to have pained a great man, a very kind friend, and a marvellous King.” Lord Rosslyn could be numbered as one of the first Society “gate crashers,” though in his case the gate-crashing was not intentional. In 1897 he went to a ball given by the father of the present Lord Derby, at Derby House, London, at which the Prince of Wales (later King Edward) was present. He thought he was among the invited guests, but it was subsequently found that no invitation had been extended to him. Telling his own story, he says: “I shook hands with Lady Derby, when Lord Derby, whom I knew only by sight, came up to me and said: ‘Lord Rosslyn, I believe.’ He then said, T am afraid you are not invited to my house. must ask you to go.’ After expressions of apology he left, and the piquant incident closed a few days later with apologies from both sides when the mistake was explained. The Earl’s domestic life was unhappy until his third marriage. He obtained a divorce from his first wife for desertion under the Scottish law. She was Miss Violet Vyner, of a well-known Lincolnshire family. The Earl’s, second marriage in 1905 was to Miss Anna Robinson, an American actress, who obtained a divorce two years later. His third wife was Miss Vera Mary Bayley. the daughter of a lieutenant in the Lancers.

ON STAGE AS “JAMES ERSKINE.” Lord Rosslyn had many dealings with moneylenders, and after his bankruptcy, filed on his own petition, he was for different periods, totalling seven years, on the stage. He was with a touring company in the provinces for some time, and gained much success in historical plays. He also appeared in the West End with Sir (then Mr. Gerald du Maurier, and with Miss Irene Vanbrugh. His stage name was James Erskine. The family name of the Rosslyns is St. Clair-Erskine. For a few seasons in the nineties he played cricket for Northamptonshire. He served as an officer in horse regiments in the South African War, and he was at the relief of Ladysmith. He also acted as a war correspondent. After the war he returned to the stage. His financial affairs to some extent recovered, and he interested himself in the coal trade, but he later leased bis coal mines in Scotland. His eldest son. Lord Loughborough, died under tragic circumstances following fall from a window in London in 1929. The heir to the Earldom Lord Rosslyn’s grandson, the present Lord Loughborough, who is 22 years of age.

Editor of The Gram and author of the book Twice Captured: www.angloboerwar.com/books/76-rosslyn-twice-captured

£2,950