Cornelia, the American Countess of Craven
Like many other great English families, in the late nineteenth century the Cravens were strapped for cash. Running numerous stately homes and mixing in London society had become ruinously expensive, particularly after the ambitious building projects of the third Earl. So the fourth Earl decided to follow the trend and in 1893 he married an American heiress, which was the obvious solution. Cornelia Martin, 1877-1961. The Martins, an immensely wealthy family of New York bankers, bought an an estate in Scotland where in the early 1890s they met William George Robert Craven, the fourth Earl, and introduced him to their daughter Cornelia. With no discouragement from her parents, he proposed to Cornelia and married her in 1893 when he was twenty-four, and she was only sixteen. Cornelia entered London society, where other American heiresses such as Lady Randolph Churchill and the Duchess of Marlborough, took a leading rôle. With he...