Description: 26 Gloucester Place, Brighton [The location of the adultery between Gwyneth Alice Hoos and James Hughes Massie]. Source Citation: Wikimedia Commons contributors, ‘File:26 Gloucester Place, Brighton (IoE Code 480742).JPG’, Wikimedia Commons, 24 May 2023, 23:21 UTC, <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:26_Gloucester_Place,_Brighton_(IoE_Code_480742).JPG&oldid=766735062> [accessed 11 December 2024]
On 16 April 1917, a petition for divorce was filed at the Principal Registry in London by Mr. Edward Jan Hoos, a banker who lived in Eaton Place, London. He was alleging that his wife, Gwyneth Alice Hoos had ‘…frequently committed adultery…’, with a named co-respondent, a Mr. James Hughes Massie, ‘…at 26 Gloucester Place, Brighton, in the County of Sussex’ (see image). As we discussed in a previous blog, a husband petitioning for a divorce only had to prove his wife’s adultery. But how had Edward and Gwyneth got to this point? Edward and Gwyneth (then Gwyneth Alice Mansergh) had married only 5 years earlier, in 1912 at St. Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge when they were both in their 20s. They’d lived together as husband and wife in Hampstead and had one child together, Martin Edward Jan Hoos, born in September 1913. There’s no further information about those five years of marriage in their J 77 divorce case file, and there are no newspaper reports about the divorce trial or their lives during this time.
Description: The front cover of the divorce case file for Hoos v. Hoos and Massie. Source Citation: The National Archives; London, England, UK; Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, later Supreme Court of Judicature: Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Files, J 77; Reference Number: J 77/1288/9319; Series Number: J 77; Piece Number: 1288.
What we do know is that as part of Edward’s petition for divorce he was asking for custody of their child, and as the ‘innocent’ party in the case it was highly likely that this would be granted. He was also asking that the co-respondent, James Hughes Massie, should pay Edward’s costs in the case, and this wasn’t unusual. In a husband’s petition for divorce, if a named male co-respondent was found to have committed adultery with the wife, he would usually be liable for all the costs incurred by the petitioner and respondent, as well as their own. In fact, when the case was heard in the Divorce Court on 17 November 1917, the Honorable Sir Maurice Hill, the High Court judge, presided over the case. He found Gwyneth to be ‘guilty of adultery with the Co-respondent James Hughes Massie’ and ordered James to pay the Petitioners costs (how much these amounted to is unclear in the case file). Most importantly, custody of Martin, the child from the marriage, was given to Edward, and whether Gwyneth ever saw her son again is unknown. On 3 June 1918 (following the six-month mandatory waiting period between the stages of divorce) the Honorable Sir Henry Alfred McCardie, a High Court judge granted Edward and Gwyneth a Decree Absolute, formally ending their marriage and leaving them both free to remarry.
This is where the story should have ended, but this wasn’t the last time Gwyneth or James appeared in the Divorce Court, as there were further repercussions from their adultery. Gwyneth’s lover James Hughes Massie was himself married. He had married Effie Dunreith Gluck on 30 November 1902, when they’d wed in Buffalo within the State of New York in the United States of America. At the time, Effie had been a 44-year-old widow with two children from her earlier marriage, while James had been 26 years old and a bachelor. After the marriage, they co-habited as husband and wife in Hampstead, London, while James was working as a literary agent who founded the company Hughes Massie that represented Agatha Christie. Little is known of their lives from the point of marriage to appearing in the Divorce Court fifteen years later.
On 30 August 1917, after Edward Jan Hoos had filed his petition for divorce, but before the trial, James’s wife Effie petitioned for a Restitution of Conjugal Rights alleging that he had deserted her. Letters inside the case file make it clear that James had no intention of returning to cohabitation with Effie. On 15 May 1918, the judge presiding over the case, the Honorable Sir Alfred McCardie, granted Effie a Decree of Restitution of Conjugal Rights. In this document James was ordered to ‘…return home to [the] Petitioner and render to her conjugal rights…’ within 14 days. A husband who refused to return to the marital home within this period would give his wife grounds to apply for a full divorce based on his desertion, providing of course that he had also committed adultery.
James did not return home, and on the 22 June 1918 (only a few weeks after the Hoo’s divorce was finalised), Effie filed a petition for divorce. Within her petition Effie alleged James had committed adultery, naming Gwyneth (incorrectly spelt Gwynette) Alice Hoos as the ‘other woman’ he had committed adultery with at 26 Gloucester Place, Brighton ‘from the 9th to the 12th day of March 1917’. As we outlined in an earlier blog post, despite being named in the petition, Gwyneth was not a formal co-respondent, and her name did not appear on the front cover of the case file. This was because a female petitioner could not claim damages from a female co-respondent in the same way a male petitioner could from a male co-respondent, and so they are not named as parties to the legal suit.
Description: The front cover of the divorce case file for Massie v. Massie. Source Citation: The National Archives; London, England, UK; Court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, later Supreme Court of Judicature: Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Files, J 77; Reference Number: J 77/1363/1759; Series Number: J 77; Piece Number: 1363.
As a woman petitioning for a divorce, Effie had to provide evidence of adultery and an additional marital offence. Wives most commonly cited desertion or cruelty, although there were other offences used less frequently. Effie alleged James deserted her, providing evidence of his non-compliance with the Decree of Restitution of Conjugal Rights. Effie also referred to the Hoos divorce, saying ‘THAT the said James Hughes Massie was the Co-respondent and the said Gwynette Alice Hoos was the Respondent in the suit of “Hoos v. Hoos and Massie”, which was heard by this Honorable Court and a Decree Nisi was pronounced on the 17th day of November 1917…’. The Massie’s divorce case went to trial on 2 December 1918, and the Honorable Mr. Justice Roche granted Effie a Decree Nisi, followed six months later with a Decree Absolute on 30 June 1919. As the adulterous partner in the Hoos divorce and the ‘guilty’ party in his own, James was liable for all the costs from both litigations in the Divorce Court.
Only a few weeks later, on 17 July 1919, James and Gwyneth married each other at Islington Register Office in London, but their happiness was short lived. James died only a few years later in February 1921. Gwyneth appeared to not marry again and lived until 1967. James’s ex-wife, Effie also appears to have not married again and spent the last years of her life living in Los Angeles with her daughter, passing away in 1938. Gwyneth’s ex-husband, Edward, remarried in 1930 and had two further children with his new wife, the Honourable Sarah Marie Adelaide Cust.
These interconnected cases show the aftermath of adultery, and the complexities of legally separating. They also highlight the additional evidence that wives were required to provide when petitioning for a divorce, and the different roles that men and women who were involved in adultery with married husbands and wives, had in the divorce process.
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Informative post. Appreciate the share