Mabel Etheldred Turnor

Born in or about 1854 in London, Mabel Etheldred Turnor was the daughter of Captain Henry Martin Turnor, late of the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards, and his wife, the Honourable Marianne Bosville née Macdonald, daughter of the 3rd Lord Macdonald.

She appears on the 1861 census living with her parents and two of her sisters at Swarland Park in Northumberland. Also present on the night of the census were six servants.

In 1901 she was living with her married sister Henrietta Eldon near Cookham in Berkshire. The only other member of the household was a live-in cook. Given that her sister was the Countess of Eldon, their arrangement seems somewhat modest. On the night of the census, the Earl was living at 43 Portman Square with his son Osmund and two servants.

Henrietta and Mabel’s father died on 2 January 1902. Under the terms of his will, Henrietta inherited £15,000 and Mabel inherited £5000 with a further £15,000 in trust for the use of her and her sister Florence.

Later that same year, on 8 September 1902 at the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Ransom in Eastbourne, Mabel married George Thomas Morgan, son of Edward William Morgan, a Captain in the Royal Horse Artillery. According to their marriage certificate, the groom was ‘Secretary to the Exchange Telegraph Company Limited.’

In 1914 she petitioned to have her marriage annulled on the grounds of non-consummation, claiming that ‘after the said ceremony of marriage [she] lived with the said George Thomas Morgan at Matlock House Eastbourne in the County of Sussex and at other places but such marriage has never been consummated […] by reason of the impotence or incapacity or wilful refusal of the said George Thomas Morgan.’

Her address at the time she filed her petition was 77 Egerton Gardens, Knightsbridge.

Mrs Mabel Etheldred Morgan died, aged 82, on 29 August 1935 at 52 Tilehurst Road, Reading. The abstract of her will describes her as the ‘wife of George Thomas Morgan,’ so presumably her petition to have her marriage annulled was not successful. She left an estate valued at £1151.

Photographer and location unidentified.