10. Scandal
In 1865 Blakely bought the 300 ton iron-hulled, schooner-rigged steam yacht Ceres of Charles Kuhn Prioleau. This was one of the largest steam yachts built, it was a two-masted, single-funnel steamer from Tod & McGregor’s yard on the Clyde in 1859. Prioleau had acquired it in 1864 for £5,500. Its elegant lines were suspiciously like those of a blockade runner. It replaced Blakely’s previous, more modest, 50 ton cutter Phosphorus at Ryde off the Isle of Wight that he had acquired in 1864. It was an unlucky purchase...
The iron steam yacht Ceres bought by Captain Blakely in 1865
306 tons builder’s measure, 80 tons register, 138 feet length overall, 21½ feet beam
Built as a paddle pleasure yacht by Tod & McGregor, Clyde Foundry, Meadowside, Glasgow, in 1859, but converted to screw propulsion by 1865.
Official Number 19,586. Signal Identity MSNQ
Seen here in Norway in a painting by Samuel Walters
On June 24, 1867 The Times newspaper reported the following suit in the Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, in London, that had happened three days prior:
“This was a petition by Edward Cholmeley Dering for the dissolution of his marriage with Harriet Mary Dering, by reason of her adultery with Theophilus Alexander Blakely. The respondent and co-respondent denied the charge, and the co-respondent further pleaded connivance.”
“The petitioner in this case is a son of Sir Edward Dering, and the respondent is a daughter of the Hon Mrs Capel, and was formerly the wife of the late Viscount Forth, and a party to matrimonial suit which was brought before the Court a few years ago. The co-respondent, Captain Blakely, is well-known in connexion with an Ordnance Company. The marriage took place in October 1862, and Mr and Mrs Dering lived together on very affectionate terms at his seat in Herefordshire, called Clifford’s Place, and at other places. Captain Blakely, who is a married man, was on intimate terms with them, and in the early part of 1866 he accompanied them on a tour of the Continent and on a yachting expedition. In May 1866 they were at Clifford’s Place, when Mrs Dering unexpectedly left her home and came to the hotel at the Great Western [Railway] terminus at Paddington and sent for Captain Blakely. Mr Dering, who was much distressed and afflicted at her going away, communicated with her, and expressed his willingness to take her back, but she positively refused to return. I was proved that shortly afterwards Captain Blakely and Mrs Dering passed ten days or a fortnight together at a private hotel in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, living as man and wife.”
“There was no defence.”
“The Judge Ordinary said that he regretted that the co-respondent had thought proper to put on the record a plea of connivance, for a more insulting insinuation could hardly be made against a husband, without having any evidence to support it.”
“Decree nisi, with costs against the co-respondent.”
The suit was not quite as black and white as the Judge Ordinary presumed. The Queen’s Proctor, the law officer responsible for matrimonial business, took Blakely’s counter plea against Edward Dering seriously, particularly after receiving supporting affidavits from Mrs Dering’s parents in November 1867. On June 5, 1868 the Proctor accused Dering before the Judge Ordinary and a jury of conniving and colluding with his wife and Blakely to secure the divorce, and that the decree nisi was therefore void.
Mrs Dering ‘had form’. Her first husband, Lord Forth, “a dipsomaniac”, had committed suicide in October 1861 after the death of his mistress. Lady Forth, as she then was, promptly married her own paramour, Edward Cholmeley Dering. She had just been involved in a bitter but unsuccessful divorce suit against Forth, in which both parties were deemed equally culpable.
The intervention of the Queen’s Proctor was reported in the public press and the hearing threw even more light on Blakely’s relationship with Mrs Dering. The original adultery was said to have taken place in the months of November and December 1865, and in the months of January, February, March, April and May 1866 at No 10 Bolton Street, London, and “on board a certain yacht in divers places in parts beyond the seas” in May, actually on a cruise from Marseilles to Tangiers, Gibraltar, Lisbon and London. There were serious questions as to how much the husband knew of the matter.
The Judge Ordinary observed in his summary; “If an intimacy springs up between a married woman and a man of such a character as to be dangerous to her honour, and the husband knows so much of it as to perceive the danger, and yet purposely or recklessly disregards it, he is guilty of wilful misconduct which may conduce to adultery.”
On June 6, 1868 the jury found for Edward Dering again, “but added that he had shewn a great want of caution.”
It mattered nothing to Blakely or to Mrs Dering; they had died together in Peru in May.