Thursday, October 21, 2010

First mention in British press of Mrs. Simpson's divorce

Embed from Getty Images 

October 21, 1936

The World's Press news, a London weekly newspaper that has a "large circulation in British newspaper offices, " published the following tonight:  "Newspapers throughout the country have been requested to refrain from reporting the divorce case of Simpson v Simpson to be heard in Ipswich next week."  According to the New York Times report,  the World's Press News does not state the source for the request, although it is understood that the request was made from the lawyers for the Newspaper Proprietors Association.

The new British weekly to break the "unofficial censorship, self-imposed by all United Kingdom editors on the Simpson divorce case is the News Review, which wrote: "Reporters were last week laying lines at Ipswich, Suffolk, in readiness for the divorce suit between Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Aldrich Simpson, which is expected to be heard next week before Mr. Justice Hawke."

The News Review also published "an abstract discussion of the law governing royal marriages."

"From musty statute books and precedents, constitutional lawyers have ferreted out the information that King Edward need not marry a royal princess but may wed a commoner.  His own consent given in council (not necessarily with the permission of the Privy Council) is all that is required for his marriage outside royalty.
"The only limitation on the King's choice of a bride is that which forbids him to marry a Catholic."  

Mrs. Simpson is not Roman Catholic.

No comments: