George Harry Grey

George Harry Grey, 7th Earl of Stamford and Warrington, was only 18 when he inherited the title, four vast estates, a house in London, and an annual income of £90,000 in 1845. He inherited all this from his grandfather, a man famously charitable to strangers and vile to his family. His parents were already dead, and his one beloved sister would die in her 20s. His family clearly already had doubts about him, and his uncle tried to get him to sign a pledge that he would never marry unsuitably, but as soon as he turned 21, he married Bessie, the daughter of a Cambridge University bedmaker and bootmaker.

Despite the family’s attempts to pay her off with £500, the marriage was a happy one until she died of tuberculosis in Brighton just six years later. Within a year, Harry married Catherine Cox, who had previously earned her living as a daring bareback horse rider in Astley’s circus; she was said to have Romany ancestors. She performed with two sisters, excitedly described in one account as "the raven-ringletted beauties", in an act climaxing with their leaping in tandem through hoops of fire.

Their wedding certificate shows, not surprisingly, that none of Harry’s family attended. The witnesses were Catherine’s sister and the man who introduced them, George Smythe, who was thought to have been her lover at one time and undertook to have her educated and taught elocution.

Victorian society did not welcome Harry’s beautiful new wife with open arms. Catherine came from the working class, and her marriage to Harry defied the rigid conventions that governed Victorian polite society. So society metered out its punishment. When the couple arrived at their new home, the bell ringers at the nearby village defied the priest and church wardens and began to ring the customary welcoming peal, for which they would have expected a handsome tip. The wardens broke down the door to silence the bells. The young couple were publicly rejected, ostracised, and humiliated whenever they were out and about in the Cheshire community; invitations to attend social engagements in the county were not forthcoming, and requests to attend similar events at their estate went unanswered. Queen Victoria herself once refused to sit in the box adjacent to the couple at the opera. In 1855, at the Knutsford races, Catherine was greeted by a barricade of turned backs and raised parasols—and, according to some accounts, some hissed "strumpet" at her as she walked by.

They returned to Dunham Massey, their Cheshire mansion that had been specially redecorated for the bride, and started packing. A cavalcade of carts carried away magnificent paintings, books, and treasures, including a priceless collection of Huguenot silver, some of the servants, and most of the furniture. The couple left Cheshire forever, and the house was abandoned. Catherine never set foot in Dunham Massey again, though Harry occasionally made fleeting return visits during game shooting season.

They moved to an even grander house at Enville, to which Harry added a gigantic glass house rivalling the Crystal Palace. He died in 1883, but Catherine outlived him by 22 years and was very popular for her lively mind, kind heart, and lavish charity. She also cleared the massive debts her husband racked up, having inherited the family's love of horses and gambling.

Photo of 7th Earl of Warrington and Catharine, Countess of Warrington (centre) at Enville Hall, c. 1860

Sources:

https://incheshiremagazine.co.uk/

https://www.theguardian.com/.../couple-snubbed-victorian...