William Robert Bradley Craven, 6th Earl of Craven (8 September 1917 – 27 January 1965) was a British peer.
Early life
Craven was born on 8 September 1917 and was the only child of William Craven, 5th Earl of Craven and the former Mary Williamina George, who married in 1916.[a] His parents later separated and, in 1925, his mother sued his father for divorce citing the latter's relationship with Vera, Countess of Cathcart.[2] His father died of peritonitis at the age of thirty-five in 1932.[3] His maternal grandfather was William George, the town clerk of Invergordon. His paternal grandparents were William Craven, 4th Earl of Craven[4] and his American wife, the former Cornelia Martin.[5][6] His grandmother was the only daughter of Bradley Martin and his wife Cornelia, who were famed as the hosts of the Bradley-Martin Ball.[7]
On 3 May 1939, Lord Craven married Gwendoline Irene Meyrick, a daughter of Dr. Ferdinand Richard Holmes Meyrick and the former Katherine Evelyn Nason, the infamous owner of the 43 Club. Two of Irene's sisters also married into the British nobility, Mary Meyrick, to the 14th Earl of Kinnoull, and Dorothy Meyrick to the 26th Baron de Clifford.[9] Before their divorce in 1954, they were the parents of one daughter:[8]
Lady Sarah Jane Craven (b. 1940), who married South African David Thomson Glover, a son of Col. John William Thomson-Glover, in 1961.[8]
Lord Craven died in 1965 and was succeeded in the earldom by his elder son, Thomas.[8]
Descendants
Through his youngest son Simon, he was a grandfather of Benjamin Robert Joseph Craven (b. 1989), who became the 9th Earl of Craven as an infant upon his father's death in 1990.[8]
Coat of arms of William Craven, 6th Earl of Craven
On a Chapeau Gules turned up Ermine a Griffin statant wings elevated Ermine beaked and foremembered Or
Escutcheon
Argent a Fess between six Cross Crosslets fitchée Gules
Supporters
On either side a Griffin wings elevated Ermine beaked and foremembered Or
Motto
Virtus In Actione Consistit (Virtue consists in action)
References
Notes
^In 1922, shortly after his father inherited the earldom following his grandfather's 1921 drowning, the 5th Earl was named in the divorce suit between George Cathcart, 5th Earl Cathcart and Lady Cathcart, the former Vera Estelle (née Fraser) Warter. The Earl obtained a "decree dissolving his marriage with Lady Cathcart, upon proof being given of her indiscretions with the Earl of Craven".[1]
^Peter W. Hammond, editor, The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times, Volume XIV: Addenda & Corrigenda (Stroud, Gloucestershire, U.K.: Sutton Publishing, 1998), page 217.
^Cokayne, George (1982). The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. Vol. III. Gloucester England: A. Sutton. p. 506. ISBN0-904387-82-8.
