Tutankhamun Centenary 2022: Almina, Countess of Carnarvon Goes to America in 1903

 

TUTANKHAMUN CENTENARY 2022

Almina Carnarvon Remembers Her Time In The  USA  In 1903

 

Oh! My Dears! I  simply couldn’t stand America or the Americans.

In January 1903  when  my  husband, Lord Carnarvon,  was intent on a visit to the United States to buy race horses  we were forced through illness to forfeit the passage booked on the RMS Celtic, due out of Liverpool on 14 January.

The illness of our dear  son  Henry,  Lord Porchester,  who had a high temperature and a general malaise,  detained us at  our home at Highclere Castle.

By the way, my dears,   Henry was really Prince Victor  Duleep Singh’s procreation. The poor boy suffered a succession of childhood pains and woes. We had to thrash him rather a lot too as he was  a lazy boy and a wicked one.  

As we were setting off for Liverpool   nanny and nurse both begged us to dally a while to see if Henry recovered his faculties.   Dear, sweet, lovely Prince Victor,  officially his godfather,  who dotted on the boy,  came and stayed a while with him and sat with him, read to him, sang to him and held his hand. It was touching to see them together. Victor was always at Highclere to watch his son grow up.

This delay to our travel  plans was observed by Dr Marcus ‘ Johnny’  Beauchamp Johnson – my husband’s devoted  physician – and the doctor  who brought Henry into the world – with much fuss and pain to me in the year 1898.   We were  so worried that the boy would be born resembling his real father.  So much so that a second town house was held in reserve in case we needed to hide our secret away from the Society vultures.    

RMS Oceanic : A White Star Ship on the Atlantic Run

Such joy.  Young Porchester rallied,  and we boarded the RMS Oceanic on 28 January 1903  and arrived in New York on 5 February, a day later than scheduled by the White Star’s timetable.

There had been head winds and heavy seas. Foolishly one American newspaper  “The New York Times”  said the real reason for the delay was owing to “ a heavy cargo of titled foreigners”.  

The Oceanic, the second ship so named by the White Star Line was a most modern vessel thankfully built only for speed. But she also possessed electric lighting and refrigeration.

On board, like us travelling in the saloon class, we met our Wiltshire neighbours from Longford Castle, Jacob and Julian Pleydell-Bouverie, the 6th Earl and Countess of Radnor, as well as  Radnor’s Earl’s sister Lady Wilma, Countess of Lathom.

My husband greatly admired the 5th Earl Radnor’s horse stud which was all but broken upon his death in 1900. Julian, Countess of Radnor, had the profound spark of founding the Wiltshire Nursing Association.

Oh my dears:  I simply despised America. A cross-examination by a dreary custom officials before we could even disembark made an upsetting start. The vulgar scene witnessed of Rosalind, Lady Cheywynd, being photographed and declared in her home City of New York  “ the most beautiful woman in the ship” was equally in gross bad taste.

New York Harbour

Many great social affairs had been arranged by the fashionable folk of Gotham, Newport and Washington Society interested in us more as zoo animals than their honoured guests. These were mostly luncheon parties where females only were present and this was not my own concept of fun. 

I discovered quickly that I had nothing in common with any of them.

I grew tired of hearing that we had all awakened in England to the realization that it was essential to spend winter in New York. The opposite was true; it was their City’s maid and matrons who craved drawing room acquaintance with desirable persons such as myself from the smart worlds of Paris and London.

Waldorf Astoria, New York in 1903

In New York we stayed briefly at the Waldorf Astoria which was full of intolerable German Embassy officials, and the Countess Cassini, the garrulous wife of the Russian Ambassador.

Lord Carnarvon’s handsome Pembroke cousin,  Sir Michael Herbert, sent us a warm greeting, he had been newly appointed to the British Embassy in Washington.

This dreary  American sojourning was almost entirely for my husband’s amusement, pleasure and rest. He had been to the country before but planned an extensive tour motoring, fishing, horse-racing and shooting.

Lord Carnarvon’s physician, Dr Marcus Johnson, also accompanied us from England. The time spent on the East coast over we proceeded westward to California. We favoured its milder climate. My sugar daddy godfather,  Baron  Alfred de Rothschild, had generously arranged an introduction in San Francisco to his banker friend of his, Mr William Alford, whom we found charming.

Both my husband and I wrote warmly to him with our grateful thanks. Less than charming was a ridiculous ball given by Mamie Stuyversant Fish. During one dance the ladies were expected to lead guinea pigs on their arms whilst dancing with their male escourts. This was both hilarious and disastrous as the small creatures screeched and then began to soil the dance floor area.

My husband, who had for a few years gradually increased the racing stable at Highclere Stud, had his first taste of Californian horse racing at the track of the famous Oakland where he was the guest of Richard McCreary of Burlingame. I met Mr McCreary at an enjoyable evening dinner subsequently given on our behalf by Mr. Jeremiah Lynch. It was held in the quaintly named Owl Room of the Bohemian Club, also in San Francisco. The Club’s decorations were wonderfully lavish. Apple and orange blossoms were arranged in a large bowl in the centre of the table. Candelabra with yellow silk shades added a soft glow to the scene. Clusters of foliage also decorated the walls and were hung over pictures making a charming effect. We had attracted a flutter of attention in the American newspapers. There was splendid praise for my choice of selecting evening wear made of black lace.

However they found it irresistible to refrain from comment upon my piquant French type of beauty.

Our dear treasure  Dr Marcus Johnson - and life long confidante-  proved a singularly loyal companion to me during the long spells alone during the day when my husband was meeting with his American friends of an earlier acquaintance. My husband even insisted in exploring the City sights of San Francisco at night, with friends of his from a overseas opera touring company.  Johnny consoled me most tenderly. He simply took hold of my arm and we promenaded together around the hotel court. Neither he nor I, nor any lady should have any desire to see this country’s common herd including its infernal Chinese Quarter – which so greatly fascinated Lord Carnarvon.

American slang -so called- drew me to make certain fastidious remarks. I also wrote down a number of these curious phrases, unheard in England, even more inane when viewed with their absurd explanation keys.

The language of the Yankies, like their unpleasant manners and their attitude I found to be sloppy, rude and rough. On our last evening back in New York the lift-boy of the hotel even spat out “gum” at my feet.

Oh!  My dears,  how I longed to be back in Merrie England.

To great relief we left New York on 8 April, once more on the Oceania, and thus arrived back in Liverpool on 15 April.

I never set foot again in America or ever wanted to go back there.

 

MORE CAN BE FOUND IN  THE BOOK

 “ LIES, DAMNED LIES AND THE CARNARVONS" 

A NEW  BOOK FOR THE TUTANKHAMUN CENTENARY 2022

BY WILLIAM CROSS, FSA SCOT.

TO MARK THE  TUTANKHAMUM CENTENARY 2022

ENQUIRIES

PLEASE EMAIL WILLIAM CROSS, FSA Scot

williecross@aol.com