Saturday, February 22, 2025

LILLIE LANGTRY : A NEW HUSBAND INFLUENCES HER TO SELL OUT OF THE HORSE AND RACING BUSINESS


Excerpt pages 247-248

In 1899, when she was forty-five, she married Hugo de Bathe. He was an odd choice for her.  He was nineteen years younger than her and he had no money to speak of. His main attraction seems to have been his father's title and Lillie would become Lady de Bathe. She was able to go ahead with the marriage with a clear conscious, because her troublesome first husband, Edward, had died of a brain hemorrhage in an insane asylum just over a year earlier, ending the speculation over the validity of her Californian divorce.

Hugo persuaded Lillie to sell her riding stable and horses, because he didn't think it was proper for a woman to own racehorses. The couple lived on Jersey for a time, but when Hugo volunteered for army service in the Boer War and left for South Africa, she returned to London and resurrected her stage career. Initially, she was just as successful as before, but her appeal was slowly waning. She tired vaudeville in New York and she made a film. In 1907, her marriage to Hugo finally paid off. Hugo's father died and she became Lady de Bathe....



It's my suspicion that Lillie supported her younger husband and that they both went their separate ways without considering divorce. In this way during the Victorian Era both would have been considered more respectable.   

I have a question for you: Have you given up a business in order to keep a relationship?



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