11. A Marriage Scam That Worked Once, But Not Twice
Edward Gibbon Wakefield convinced the bewildered and alarmed Ellen Turner that his banker uncle had agreed to release some funds that would save her father. However, he would do so only on condition that she wed Wakefield, and her fugitive father had consented to the marriage. Ellen agreed, so Wakefield took her across the border to Scotland, where laws were less strict, and they were married by a blacksmith. When Ellen asked to see her father, Wakefield promised to make it happen, but the meetings always fell through. Eventually, he convinced her that her father had gone to France, and wanted his daughter and her husband to follow him there.
In the meantime, Wakefield had written Ellen’s father and informed him of the marriage and that he was now Mr. Turner’s son-in-law. He was disappointed in his expectation that the rich businessman would react as his first wife’s father had. Instead, Ellen’s father, who also happened to be High Sheriff of Cheshire, called in favors from the British Foreign Office. It sent a lawyer and a policeman to France, where they found Wakefield and Ellen in a Calais hotel. Ellen was returned to her father, and Wakefield and his brother were arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. The marriage was eventually annulled by Parliament.
