Henry Arthur Mornington Wellesley, 3rd Earl CowleyJP (14 January 1866 – 15 January 1919), styled as Viscount Dangan between 1884 and 1895, was an English aristocrat.
In 1888 he was sued for breach of promise by the actress and Gaiety GirlPhyllis Broughton. The case was settled for £2,500. His lawyers emphasised that the ending of the engagement was not related to the actress's character.[4]
Christian Arthur Wellesley, 4th Earl Cowley (1890–1962), an actor and army officer who married actress Mae Pickard in 1914.[7] They divorced in 1933 and he remarried to Mrs Mary Himes (née Mary Elsie May) in 1933.[1][8]
He married, secondly, Hon. Millicent Florence Eleanor (née Wilson) Cradock-Hartopp (1872–1952) on 14 December 1905 at Colombo in Sri Lanka.[9] Millicent, the divorced wife of Sir Charles Cradock-Hartopp, 5th Baronet, was a daughter of Charles Wilson, 1st Baron Nunburnholme and the former Florence Jane Helen Wellesley. In 1912, while still married to his second wife, Lord Cowley was a named as a correspondent in the divorce suite of Geoffrey Charles Buxton against his wife. Before she divorced him in 1913, citing his "desertion and misconduct with Mrs. G.C. Buxton".[10] They were the parents of:
Hon. Henry Gerald Valerian Francis Wellesley (1907–1981), who married Doris Caroline Sabia Kennedy, daughter of Edward Robert Kennedy, in 1929.[11] They divorced in 1953 and he married Nancy Joan Hilliam, daughter of Bentley Collingwood Hilliam, in 1954. His second marriage was annulled in 1955 and he married Marina Isabel Sherlock Eustace, daughter of Frank Rowland Eustace, in 1957. They divorced in 1969 and he married, fourthly, Valerie Rose Pitman, daughter of Christian Ernest Pitman, in 1969.[1]
His third, and final, marriage was to Clare Florence Mary (née Stapleton) Buxton on 19 January 1914.[12] Clare, who was by then divorced from her husband Geoffrey Buxton of Dunston Hall, was a daughter of Sir Francis Stapleton, 8th Baronet and Mary Catherine Gladstone. They were the parents of:[1]
Lady Cecilia Katherine Wellesley (1917-1952), who married John Claude Smiley, son of Maj. Sir John Smiley, 2nd Baronet, in 1936.[14] They divorced in 1942 and she married Lt.-Col. Norman David Melville Johnstone, son of Major Charles Melville Johnstone, in 1942. They divorced in 1950 and she married, thirdly, to Norman Hyman Wachman, son of Woolf Wachman, in 1950.[1]
Lord Cowley died at Chippenham in Wiltshire on 15 January 1919, at age 53.[3] He was buried at Chippenham.[1] His widow, the Dowager Countess of Cowley, died in a fire on 8 May 1949.[15]
^Diana Mary Wellesley married Daniel Dixon on 20 July 1933 at St Margaret's Westminster, and gave her age at that time as 19 (St Margaret's Church, Westminster, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1934)