Country Images Magazine May 2015 - North Edition | Page 13

His Secret Wife,
Missing Corpse
Far left: A photograph alleged to be of the 5th Duke of Portland in
disguise as the bearded Baker Street businessman, Thomas Charles Druce.
Left: A photograph alleged to be of the 5th Duke of Portland as himself,
clean-shaven with whiskers.
Above: Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire residence of the Duke of
Portland, photographed in the early twentieth century.

left Australia to come to England to claim his inheritance: the grandson of
Thomas Charles Druce believed he was the 5th Duke of Rutland’s rightful
heir.
This fascinating tale is thoroughly documented in Piu Marie Eatwell’s
book The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife and the Missing Corpse which
comes out in paperback this month.

FAMOUS VICTORIAN SCANDALS
Born in Calcutta but raised in the UK, Piu is a qualified lawyer and a
former BBC television producer who came across the Druce-Portland case
when she picked up in a second-hand bookshop a volume about famous
Victorian scandals.
As part of her research she was given a private tour of Welbeck and
also spent a huge amount of time poring over the archive of the Dukes of
Portland which are in Nottingham University’s manuscripts and special
collections department.

Piu points out that the Victorians were not as genteel as they are
sometimes painted: “It was quite shocking the extent to which the adoption
of double lives went on. It was partly because it was easier to do that then
than now.
“Now, when you’ve got the internet, people can be traced very easily. It’s
difficult to set yourself up as a different person living at a different address
down the street without being caught.
“But the practices were different in those days. If your marriage was falling
apart you couldn’t just divorce and get re-married in the way you can now,
so if you wanted to change your life or live freely, you would have to adopt
these very dishonest, multiple personae.”
Piu regards the 5th Duke of Portland as one of the great British
eccentrics.
“It’s quite extraordinary what he did. I think there’s a fascination in the
idea of this tortured soul who hardly went out, didn’t speak to people,

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