WHY IS THE EVIDENCE SO SCARCE?

If legends, gossip and rumors cannot always be proved beyond a doubt; the inferences made from leases, electoral registers and census records, do not always prove conclusive, and here is why:

Property leases

 

"Married women were not allowed to own and control property in their own right", not until The Married Women’s Property Act 1882. 

 

So, the probability of finding Lillie Langtry's name (Emilie Charlotte Le Breton or Langtry) on a property lease, before 18 August 1882, is close to zero ...

 

Electoral registers

Likewise, you wouldn't find a woman's name on an electoral register - not until The Representation of the People Act 1918 had been passed by Parliament ...

"This Act widened suffrage by abolishing almost all property qualifications for men and by enfranchising women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications."

Census

 

Alas! Lillie Langtry's name did not appear on the 1881 Census in connection with 103, Alexandra Road, Leighton House. 

 

A couple of local historians - not to mention their laureate mentor -  immediately saw this as irrefutable proof she never lived there, or that the Prince "ever visited" the place but the absence of her name in the census did not, per se, prove anything. Not conclusively (...)

 

Firstly, we do not know exactly when she lived, slept, stayed or visited the house; if before, on or after 1881 - and for how long (...)

Secondly,  "in every census year, an enumerator delivered a form to each household for them to complete. The heads of household were instructed to give details of everyone who slept in that dwelling on census night, which was always a Sunday. The forms completed by each household, known as schedules, were collected a few days later by the enumerator."   

In other words, the procedure was prone to omissions (falsifications if you prefer) and therefore wrong inferences (...)

Secrecy and reputation management

"Bertie" - the Prince of Wales ...

 

               in "Bertie - A Life of Edward VII", p. 208, Prof. Jane Ridley/Random House Inc., 2013

 

 

                  in "Lillie Langtry: Manners, Masks, and Morals", p. 9, Laura Beatty/Chatto & Windus, 1999

  

Sir Francis Knollys, 1st Viscount Knollys (1837-1924), was another "reputation manager" who served as a trusted confidant of the Prince of Wales, ensuring that any potential scandals were swiftly dealt with.

 

     

                 Sir Francis Knollys                                                           Lord Esher

 

An example: Edward Langtry is said to have kept compromising letters written by the Prince of Wales - and addressed to his wife Lillie. 

 

When he passed away in 1897, these letters were found by his landlord (possibly Mr Cornellius Collins, with whom Edward had lodged at 9 Queen's Terrace, Southampton). It is alleged that he tried to use them to blackmail the Prince.

 

Sir Francis Knollys managed to retrieve the letters. It is nor known if he did so with, or without, a ransom. Probably without ...

 
Following the death of King Edward VII, The Viscount (Knollys) diligently carried out the monarch's final wishes by destroying all confidential correspondence and documents in the Royal Archive related to King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.

 

All papers dating back from 1863 to 1910 were meticulously destroyed.

 

Jane Ridley  - a Professor of Modern History and the author of "Bertie" - gives us an insight into "royal love nests" and the tactics used by the Prince's reputation managers. Also, there is a passage in James Brough's classic: "The Prince and the Lily", which is equally pertinent (...) 

 

  

                     in "Bertie - A Life of Edward VII", p. 212, Prof. Jane Ridley/Random House Inc., 2013

            in "The Prince and the Lily" p. 187,  James Brough/Hodder and Stoughton Ltd. 1975

Press constraints

 

Consider, for example, the fate of Mr. Adolphus Rosenberg, a scandal-mongering journalist and publisher of the "Town Talk"...

Rosenberg started the rumour that Edward Langtry, Lillie's husband, was planning to divorce her; naming H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, Lord Lonsdale and Lord Londesborough as the co-respondents ...

As if that was not enough, he wrote another defamatory piece about a genteel lady - Mary Adelaide Virginia Thomasina Eupatoria Fitzpatrick Cornwallis West - affectionately known as "Patsy" - a former inamorata of the Prince and a close friend of Lillie ...

Rosenberg suggested that Patsy had "such a mania - to meet the demand for her pictures - that she built a little photographic studio in each corner of her garden in Eaton Place - and between them, she ran, changing her clothes as she went".  

 

Her husband did not think that was funny, and in less than a week he had served Rosenberg with a lawsuit.

 

"Patsy" Cornwallis-West

In the interim, the Prince of Wales instructed his attorney George Lewis to initiate legal proceedings against Rosenberg. The outcome was predictable (...)

George Lewis - attorney to the Prince of Wales and Lillie Langtry 

(courtesy of Mary Evans Picture Library) 

Rosenberg was sued, tried, found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in prison. "I regret that I cannot add hard labour!" - said Mr. Justice Hawkins. The judge.

Every newspaper and magazine in the country knew that, in future, they had to be much more circumspect - and avoid mentioning certain names OR ...

 

So, can we rely on newspaper stories of the period? Particularly after the 1879 Rosenberg trial? Probably not ...

Faulty Research and/or Hidden Agendas

Claims were disseminated by two local historians and a laureate genealogist - both in the local  (Camden New Journal)  and the mainstream Press  (The Times and The Daily Telegraph) - and the Wikipedia subsequently - that Lillie Langtry's association with Leighton House was "a myth" invented to try to save the house from demolition ...

 

A ruse concocted by a Greek "actress" (Electra Yaras) with the help of Adrienne Corri (the well-known actress).

Their supporting "evidence", if any, was:

 

(1) That the "first reference" to Lillie Langtry and Leighton House (Evening Standard) dated back to April 1965 ; which was around the time the house was earmarked for demolition - you get the drift ...

(2) That Lillie's name did not appear in the 1881 Census in relation to 103 Alexandra Road - or any relevant electoral registers. Please refer to the paragraph above on "Census" and "Electoral registers" (...)

 

But, they overlooked the following facts:

 

(1) The first known reference to Lillie and Leighton House in the Press dated back to May 1950 NOT April 1965, as they assumed- and possibly as far back as 1914.

 

(2) The lady in question (Electra Yaras) was not an "actress" - or a liar for that matter - and she was not personally acquainted with Adrienne Corri either which, for ulterior motives, they seemed to have taken for granted ...

 

These points - and others - are fully addressed elsewhere on this blog. 

Please refer to the list of contents on the top (right hand-side) .

 

> Next: "Fact and Fiction - A Preliminary Assessment" 

< Previous: "Would the Area Have Been Suitable for Lillie Langtry?"  

 

FACT AND FICTION - A PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT

       

Assumptions

 

These assumptions first appeared in the local press (Camden New Journal) on the 27th May 2021. They were based on a piece published the same day in The History of Kilburn and West Hampstead - an informative and entertaining blog authored by Marianne Colloms and Dick Weindling.

 

Oddly enough, The Times and The Daily Telegraph, two national newspapers of record, did not hesitate to follow suit - nor did the Wikipedia for that matter - but how accurate was, in this case, the 'storians research? 

Two details

 

Two details immediately caught my attention ...

 

The first, was Adrienne Corri's name - a well-known actress - appearing in the context of another, never-heard-of actor.

 

This was odd, particularly since Electra Yaras (the other "actress") had previously been described in the press as a tour director - not as an actor. Why an "actress" now? Could this have been a subliminal designed to sell a story?

  

The second, was a credit at the end:

 

 

This was probably meant to add a patina of credibility to the piece, except

I happened to remember the name of this MBE in connection with a book by Adrienne Corri.  Here, two relevant passages from it:

 

 

 

                    Adrienne Corri in "The Search for Gainsborough" (p.58), Vanguard Press, N.Y., 1985

 

One-upmanship?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, one-upmanship refers to "a situation in which someone does or says something in order to prove or suggest they are better than someone else" …

 

Adrienne's remark on page 262 (op.cit.) is equally pertinent:

 

"To make an honest mistake is not the end of the world, but to have lost the wish to find the truth, or to deny it because it is not your truth, is bigotry."

 

 

Adrienne Corri

                                                                 © Getty Images/Harold Clements

Trails of thought

 

A: Could the gentleman's antipathy towards Adrienne Corri - his one-upmanship as she put it - given him a subconscious motive to settle an old score and, in the process, lead the 'storians astray?

 

B: Preposterous! The gentleman in question was, at the time, curating Lillie Langtry's page on the Wikipedia (screenshots below) and perhaps one thing led to another.  No conspiracy theories are necessary …

 

 Screenshots from Wikipedia 

A: OK then. Perhaps the gentleman needed a published source to make a point on the Pedia and, found a way to have others doing it for him - out of admiration, say...

 

B: Absurd!

A: What about the "two actresses"  mise-en-scène? 

 

B: What about it? 

 

A: Was Electra Yaras an "actress" too? Or was it all a play with denotation and connotation? The intuitive use of Semiotics? 

 

B: What do you mean ?

 

A: I mean, to make it all sound more credible ...

This was tantamount to suggest  that there had been some tacit agreement between two "actresses" to create the "myth" of Lillie Langtry and Leighton House, to try and prevent its demolition! Pure promotional skills! 

 

B: Come on!

A: Well, it is common knowledge that actors can live truthfully under imaginary circumstances, and here we had two actresses - as if it were - on the stage of public opinion "doing their thing". That would certainly help to sell the scoop they had in mind …

B: Ludicrous! 

 

A: Admittedly, but these were exactly the kind of stray-thoughts that were driving my lateral thinking. No allegations made or implied! 

 

One thing was for sure, the Sherlock in me was hooked and, you know what Mr. Holmes used to say (off the record)? "Everyone is guilty until proven innocent ..." 

 

And so I decided to start my own investigation …

   

 

> Next:  "The Investigation Starts"

< Previous:  "Why is the Evidence so Scarce? A Résumé"

 

 

 

THE INVESTIGATION STARTS

And it starts with the source of the media frenzy: The History of Kilburn and West Hampstead – an otherwise entertaining and  informative blog, authored by Marianne Colloms and Dick Weindling.

Dick Weindling 

 

 

Photo courtesy of Friends of West Hampstead Library

  

Mr. Weindling, kindly, replied to my e-mail and outlined his findings as follows:

Samuel Litchfield, an importer of Dresden china, lived in Leighton House between 1870 and 1875. 

 

William George Strickland, a master tailor, lived there from 1876 to 1881. 

Detail: Strickland had a shop (Strickland & Sons) in Mayfair near Bond Street at 14 Clifford Street to be precise.

Alfred Savill moved in 1881 and out in 1887.

Detail: In his opinion, this was probably Alfred Savill - the founder of Savills, the well-known estate agents, still in business today.

The bottom line was; no documentary evidence of Lillie Langtry having lived there existed or had been found. 

 

Should there have been any?  I wondered ...

☼ Please refer to my post: Why Is the Evidence So Scarce? 

 

Elsewhere, he described their sources as follows:

 

           

 

☼ I noted with interest their reliance on census and electoral registers - not to mention rate books - to pinpoint Lillie's whereabouts ...

Unfortunately, at some point in our e-mail exchange, my penchant for lateral thinking seems to have annoyed Mr Weindling and he felt there was no point in us continuing ...

 

What did I expect? The gentleman to rewrite his MBE-accredited piece to accommodate my doubts? Come on!

 

Anthony J. Camp, MBE

 

 

No photos of Mr. Anthony J. Camp exist or could be found on-line

Next in line was Anthony John Camp, MBE – a laureate genealogist and former director of the Society of Genealogists whom, I assumed, was their mentor …

 

             

 

According to Mr. Weindling, Mr. Camp had provided them with "help and information about Lillie Langtry"; information which was then used, I assume, to write their scoop but, it is not clear what information the gentleman actually provided ...

One Upmanship

Now, if Adrienne Corri's assessment of Mr Anthony Camp was anything to go by, the gentleman had a propensity for "one upmanship" - and for that reason perhaps best avoided ...

Fortunately, Mr Camp had been curating Lillie Langtry’s page on Wikipedia and a certain “Inspector Colombo” (sic) had already "interrogated" him there. 

 

☼ Full details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lillie_Langtry/Archive_1 

For the full version of Inspector Colombo's "interrogation" please scroll down to the "Lillie Langtry and Hampstead" paragraph. 

 

As I anticipated, from Adrienne Corri’s assessment of Mr Camp's persona, the gentleman was not a fan of hard-talk, or peer review, and didn’t seem to have much sense of humor either. Predictably enough, he described "Inspector Colombo" questions as "a tirade of invective" (...)

 

Here is a resumé of Mr Camp’s exchanges with “Inspector Colombo:

 

Main points: 

 

His main points reflected those of Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms but there were differences ...

A couple of examples:

Mr. Camp: “The local historians have shown that no evidence can be found that Lillie Langtry ever lived at 103 Alexandra Road (Leighton House), Hampstead, or ever visited the house." 

"Ever visited the house"? Should there have been any? What? CCTV footage? In the 19th century? 

Sources:

Mr. Camp did reveal some of his sources and I quote:

“The yearly City of Westminster Polls*, already cited and available online, show that the house was occupied by Samuel Litchfield from 1873 to 1876 (…) and then yearly from 1877 by William George Strickland, the retired tailor whose family appears at that address” (quote).

The problem was that Dick Weindling had given us (as quoted) another set of dates. Not exactly the same. Let us compare:

“Samuel Litchfield, an importer of Dresden China, lived in Leighton House between 1870 and 1875” (not between “1873 and 1876” as Mr Camp put it) and “William George Strickland - a master tailor - lived there in between 1876 to 1881”, not “from 1877” as Mr Camp stated (...)

OK. They could have been quoting from memory and typos do happen but, one thing was for sure, these dates could not be trusted - assuming they were that  

relevant. ☼ Please refer to my post: Why is the Evidence so Scarce?  

 

Poll Books and Electoral Registers:

 

It is also important to clarify there is a difference between so-called poll books and electoral registers!

* Poll books listed voters names (as electoral registers later did) but they also recorded how each person voted. They were published from the late 17th century until 1872 when the passing of the Ballot Act resulted in their effective abolition. 

Nonetheless, I decided to try Mr. Camp's tip, but when I googled for "the yearly City of Westminster Polls” nothing relevant popped-up ...

Subsequent searches returned more pertinent  bits and bytes; except the dates were not computing!

https://www.westminster.gov.uk/leisure-libraries-and-community/oldarchive/guide-archives-centre/electoral-registers-and-poll-books

Did Mr Camp mean the London Metropolitan Archives *?

 

* The City of Westminster website makes it clear that poll books for 1749, 1774-1820 and the relevant electoral registers for 1873-1899 are held at the London Metropolitan Archives - not the Westminster City archives …

 

At any rate, no one seems to have paused to ask the obvious question:

☼ Why was the evidence so scarce?

 

Andrew Yaras  

   

© Andrew Yaras

 

Last but not least, I wondered if Mr. Andrew Yaras might have more relevant information to share with us ...

Andrew Yaras was the son of Mrs. Electra Yaras whom, you might recall, was central to the 'storians piece and the headlines that followed. Born and bred in Leighton House, he lived there until the bulldozers moved in 1972.

But that was then and now, for all I knew, Andrew could be back in Greece enjoying his retirement and nursing a cool drink on a beach but, I decided to give it a try. I wrote to him and guess what? He replied!

 

He started by describing my letter as a "blast from the past" and yes, he had read  the 'storians and the "Camden New Journal" pieces - as well as those of "The Times" and "The Daily Telegraph" ... 

What did he make of the media frenzy? 

 

He was rather philosophical. "Well, they found what they found - or failed to find. Let them enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame!"

Andrew was convinced there was some connection, some association of Lillie Langtry with his childhood's home; perhaps not exactly as it had been romanticized over the centuries, but one thing was for sure, he knew his mother was not lying. 

Why was he so sure? 

Because “this was something that had always been talked about in the family. Many, many years before the area was earmarked for demolition around 1965. It was not something that my mother invented - as they assumed - to try and prevent the house from being demolished ..." 

And yes, it was possible that his parents had been told about the legend when they bought the lease of Leighton House (which was in January 1946 - not in the 1950s - as reported) but he suspected the legend was already in place by then.

Why?

Because neighbours knew about the house's association with Lillie - and the Eyre Estate workers, who would occasionally service the house, knew too. Did they all invent it? 

Other things transpired...

For example, his mother had never been an actress as such. She was a tour director, as the press correctly reported in the mid 60s and early 70s - but more of it later.  

 

What about the ghost of Lillie Langtry? I asked him next ...

 

 

                                                         

The  ghost of Lillie Langtry 

 

Andrew explained that the apparitions - and the poltergeists - had taken place around the time his mother was expecting him. He wasn't around. Obviously.

But, his father remembered some of it; for example that book banging up and down on her bedside table in the dead of the night (as reported); now, whether his mother was a "medium" - or became one during pregnancy - and would, on occasion, channel the spirit of Lillie, he couldn't tell, but ...

He did feel her genuine experiences were used by the 'storians and the Press - not to mention the 'pedia copyists - to support a certain narrative, sell a story and in the process denigrate his mother.

A fair point!

Skeptics do tend to describe anomalous phenomena as "anecdotal". The result of "attention seeking" or "deceit" ...

  

Oddly enough, Lillie Langtry's ghost has been reported in two other houses she lived in London - which, by the way, were not "earmarked" for demolition (...)

 

One was her former marital home at 17 Norfolk Street in Mayfair (now 19 Dunraven Street); the other, a house in Pont Street in Knightsbridge - now "The Cadogan Hotel" - where around Christmastime her ghost still pays an occasional visit to its guests (...)

 

The truth is; paranormal events cannot always be dismissed as old wives' tales as a visit to the prestigious Society for Psychical Research website will inform.

And in case one would rather experience the phenomena first hand, why not turn up for a séance at the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain - a favourite of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle back in the day?

The College of Psychic Studies in South Kensington would be another option, otherwise it's all in a book by Dr. Alan Sanderson, a former NHS consultant in Psychiatry, subtitled: "True Stories on the Survival of Consciousness After Death".

But continuing …

Adrienne Corri

No. His mother was not acquainted with actress Adrienne Corri as suggested. As far as he knew, she never tried to contact Adrienne. 

He certainly did not contact her or asked Adrienne "to add to the publicity in a last-minute attempt to get a preservation order on the house" - as the 'storians and the Press alleged …

Adrienne Corri happened to pop by Leighton House with a reporter, rang the bell and that was it. My mother was not at home at the time, I was.

Now, whether Adrienne had read about the legend in the press or had always known about it, he wasn't sure. Some neighbours did, that was for sure.

Perhaps the visit made more sense to her then. Adrienne had become part of the movement to save the area, and theirs was a building with some history about to be reduced to rubble…

"About a thousand neighbours were involved in a fight to save the street - not just our house  - and started a petition. We signed it too, of course!" 

 

© The Daily Telegraph, 9 October 1971

Were they all that gullible?

 

The local MP, Henry Brooke (left) and the Hampstead & St. John's Wood preservation society, became involved. 

 

Sir John Betjeman (right) an authority on English architecture and Prof. Hugh Casson (below), later President of the Royal Academy, joined in ... (1)

 

                           

Were they all that gullible? Most unlikely ...

 

My first impression of Andrew Yaras, was that of an educated gentleman with an open personality. He didn't come through as the type that would "lie for keeps", but, I knew what cynics would say:

 

"Suppose he had been wrong about the myth being already in place when his parents moved into Leighton House in 1946? He wasn't alive then, was he?"

 

"Suppose his mother did invent the myth in 1965 - as a last ditch bid to stop the house from being demolished - as the 'storians  and their illustrious consultant alleged?"

 

Could it be proved otherwise? 

  

> Next: The Investigation Goes on ...

> Previous: Fact and Fiction: A Preliminary Assessment

  

© Ghost image courtesy of Creepy Pasta

(1) Sir John Betjeman photo courtesy  of National Portrait Gallery. Sir Hugh Casson courtesy of

Mary Evans Picture Library. Henry Brooke, MP courtesy of Wikipedia.