Well, if it’s 26 November, it must be the 137th anniversary of a divorce case so saucy and notorious it not only gave us the phrase ‘what the butler saw’, but newspapers actually suppressed some of the details of the man in question’s testimony because it was “unfit for publication”.
Well, it’s the anniversary of the first day, anyway. It went on for 18, becoming “the longest, most sensational divorce trial in British history” — according to 1989 book Lady Colin Campbell: Victorian ‘sex goddess’.
(She does, indeed, have the same name as Lady Colin Campbell, who married into the same family — both men were sons of Dukes of Argyll — and also went through a messy and highly publicised divorce, but: different centuries. Also, neither is/was Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, but – given that she, too, married into the family and had an unpleasant breakup – it does suggest that Argyll men might not be ideal partners. But I digress…)
Gertrude Elizabeth Blood met Lord Colin Campbell in 1880, and he proposed after two days. She accepted, but when he went to meet her parents, he mentioned a… complication: “a slight operation” to be performed by a renowned genito-urinary surgeon.
He had “seen six medical men on at least eleven different occasions” since 1871, and had already had at least two operations, but didn’t mention that. When he was bed-ridden for a month after this new ‘slight’ operation, Gertrude’s father was suspicious.
Colin was, obviously, not being entirely honest. He either had gonorrhoea or syphilis, which he gave to Gertrude — although not immediately. They finally married in July 1881, and a couple of months later went on holiday to Bournemouth, where:
It finally was in October, but this “was not a pleasant experience”. Records of the court case suggest
The first intercourse was accompanied by shameful injunctions from Lord Colin which could not but shock his young wife. He advised her to take precautions against an infection.
It is, perhaps, little wonder that Christabel Pankhurst thought three-quarters of men had venereal disease before marriage, said there was a conspiracy of silence between husbands and doctors, and coined the slogan Votes for Women and Chastity for Men.
Anyway, Gertrude duly “suffered an attack of internal inflammation that completely incapacitated her”, but Colin’s doctors, who “swarmed the house at the time [were] firmly in Colin’s pocket”, so she wasn’t going to get a proper diagnosis from them.
She went to stay with her mother and sister, and when she wasn’t with them, started doing things her husband found entirely unacceptable, such as going out and having a social life (although, admittedly, some of her friends were chaps. I know: outrageous.) When she got ill again, he accused her of procuring an abortion.
He was still keen for her to “perform her wifely duties”, though — and she was not. She filed for a judicial separation on the grounds of her husband’s cruelty. At the time, men could accuse their wives of adultery. Women had to prove adultery plus desertion or cruelty.
In this case, the ‘cruelty’ was giving her the clap, which the court accepted, although the proceedings were kept private. Gertrude moved to Paris with her mother, so Colin sent her threatening letters. She filed for divorce, and he counter-sued.
As a result, the case was listed as “Campbell v. Campbell, and Campbell v. Campbell, Marlborough, Shaw, Butler and Bird”
Gertrude’s case was heard first, and her barrister, Sir Charles Russell told the court that Lord Colin had a venereal disease. His father, the Duke, left the court, and only one newspaper dared to print such unmitigated filth.
Gertrude’s friend Lady Frances Miles testified that she had seen his lordship in “a compromising position” with a housemaid in 1882, and things looked good for Lady Campbell. Unfortunately, Colin’s lawyer established that
…which killed Gertrude’s case. Her husband then called 35 witnesses, mostly servants, to testify that they had seen her entertaining gentlemen friends behind closed doors — including their doctor, although that accusation was “based more on paranoia than on fact”.
Another supposed lover, noted army officer Sir William Butler, simply refused to turn up, which left renowned shagger George Spencer-Churchill, son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough and later 8th duke, and Sir Eyre Shaw, chief of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
One butler said he came upon Lady Campbell and George on a sofa with “his arm around her waist and her dress disordered”. Another said he looked through a keyhole and saw Gertrude and Captain Shaw “lying down on the carpet together”.
‘How long were you at the keyhole?’
‘A few moments.”
Did you see Lady Colin’s face and head?’
‘Yes.’
‘And her feet?’
No, I could not see them. They were towards the door.’
‘Did you see her bust?’
‘I certainly saw more than that.’
O’Neill then provided graphic details of Lady Colin’s position, but no newspaper quoted his testimony. Even sensationalist papers like the Evening News and the Evening Standard said that the material was ‘unfit for publication.”
‘What did you see of Captain Shaw?’ O’Neill was asked.
‘He was over her, and I saw his head and body.’
‘How low down?’
‘To the waist.’
This was why mutoscopes — basically a rotating flip-book in a viewing stand — became known as What the Butler Saw machines, helped along when one reel (of a woman undressing) borrowed the phrase as a title.
The butler’s evidence was questioned — surely the keyhole’s brass fittings would have obscured the view? The jury trooped round to Cadogan Place to see for themselves and reported back that
the escutcheons of the keyhole are very stiff and will stay up at right angles.
I say.
In the end, it did Lord Colin no good, though. The jury didn’t believe Captain Shaw — a man who had modernised the fire brigade and saved lives — was a rotter, and they didn’t even believe it of George Spencer-Churchill (although in his case it was true).
Both sides lost. Gertrude was accused in print of having
the unbridled lust of a Messalina and the indelicate readiness of a common harlot
but public opinion (outside the aristocracy, at least) was largely on her side. Colin, though, was deemed persona non grata by posh and common folk alike and ran off to Bombay. He was dead in under a decade. Gertrude, already a published author when she married, became a successful writer and mates with George Bernard Shaw.
