In April 1902, Isobel Jay, leading soprano with the Savoy company, married twenty-five year-old Henry S. H. Cavendish, the reknowned African explorer and big game hunter.
Cavendish was the eldest son of a great grandson of the second Baron Waterpark and, both parents being deceased, had inherited large estates in Buckinghamshire and Staffordshire. His personal estate was worth well in excess of half a million pounds, a tremendous sum in those days and enough seemingly, provide for a secure future for himself and the bride of his choice. By the time he married Miss Jay, however, it was in effect all gone, a large part of it squandered on his adventurings and gifts to pretty actresses, and the remainder signed away in somewhat bizarre circumstances.
It had all begun two years previously when Cavendish had met and been befriended by Major Charles Henry Strutt, a retired Indian army officer. Strutt became something of a father figure to Cavendish, and he confided in him his hopes to marry Miss Jay, to whom he subsequently became engaged. Later, when Cavendish fell ill with neuritis he asked Major Strutt to look after his correspondence for him, and shortly thereafter they took a house together at Buckingham Gate. Later they joined Strutt's wife at Maidenhead - Cavendish becoming a paying guest of the Strutt's, contributing around 40 pounds per week towards the cost of living.
It seems to have been at this point that the Strutt's began to take advantage of him, Mrs Strutt being the chief instrument of their deceit. Mrs. Strutt purported to be a medium, and introduced Cavendish to a spiritualist device called a planchette, which henceforth would become very much a part of his daily life, and upon which he became increasingly dependent for advice.
The planchette is a thin piece of wood, about the size of a dinner plate cut into the shape of a heart, and supported by two castors on each side. The participants in the seance each place their hands upon the planchette, supposedly to conduct psychic energy by which it moves. As it does so, it leaves a track on a sheet of paper upon which it rests by means of a pencil passed through a hole in the apex. In this way letters may be scrawled on the paper conducting messages from the spirit world. The device, with a little practice, can also be easily influenced by a faker.
Over a period of time many spiritual messages were conveyed to Cavendish by means of this device. The first of these purported to say that his mother had been trying very hard to get in touch with him, and thanked Mrs. Strutt for providing the means. They also said that she would continue to advise him in all things business or otherwise, and that nothing must be done without consulting Major and Mrs Strutt in every way.
The messages came at all times of the day, sometimes interrupting meals, whenever Mrs. Strutt 'perceived' a message coming through 'from the other side'. Cavendish, by his own subsequent admission, was totally taken in, and believed absolutely that the messages came from his mother. Eventually, Cavendish was so much under her control that Mrs. Strutt felt able to dispense with the planchette, and simply write the 'messages' by hand with a pencil alone.
Cavendish was advised by the Strutt's to change his firm of lawyers from Taylor and Taylor to A.W. Ranger of Fenchurch Street - so he consulted with his mother as to whether he could trust him. "Certainly," was the reply, "he is a servant of the Lord." Cavendish continued to consult his mother, through Mrs. Strutt, in all business matters, and the advice she gave always coincided with that given by Mr. Strutt and Mr. Ranger. Mrs. Strutt also conveyed messages of prayers and poetry from the Archangels Michael and Gabriel - but such was the extent to which Mrs. Strutt had him in her thrall that not even this unecessary over-elaboration would cause him to question her veracity.
Some of the messages concerned Miss Jay, but by now she had rejected him - perhaps because of his bizarre behaviour and the extent to which the Strutt's controlled him. Cavendish was deeply upset by this turn of events, and was easily influenced to accept the command of an Abyssinian expedition which had been offered him - in the hope that his absence would give Miss Jay time to think it over so that a reconciliation might then be effected. In his absence of course, his business affairs must be managed, and it was then that Cavendish was induced into a voluntary agreement by which he surrendered all control of his estate to Major Strutt and Mr. Ranger.
Cavendish signed a power of attorney for Major Strutt to take control of his assets and act for him in all financial matters. The deed that Cavendish rather foolishly signed was an extraordinary one. It assigned to Major Strutt and Mr. Ranger practically the whole of his real and personal property as trustees, to be administered for the the benefit of Cavendish, his wife (if any), his brother and wife, and finally Mrs. Strutt and her three children.
Cavendish went off to Abyssinia, returning in January 1902, but while he was away out of the Strutt's control he finally came to his senses. Immediately upon his return he repudiated the settlement which subsequently became the subject of a sensational court case. Free of the Strutt's control, he also reconciled with Miss Jay whom he married three months later.
The legal action to regain control of his estate lasted a further year, being finally settled in the court of Chancery in London on May 18th, 1903. Having heard evidence of seances, planchette writings, table writings and other extraordinary events, the judge expressed amazement at Cavendish's behaviour but held that he had not been fairly advised as to the full meaning of the settlement he had signed and accordingly set it aside - thus restoring to Cavendish full control of what was left of his finances.
A curious side effect of the case, according to the Messrs. Jacques, principal manufacturers of planchettes, was that the demand for their product rose to an extraordinary extent during the course of the proceedings, with orders coming in from Ireland and France as well.
| Author: Don Gillan, www.stagebeauty.net. |
| Primary Sources: Fitchburg Daily Sentinel, 28th March, 1903 and other period publications. |
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