Correspondence concerning the claim of Helene Hicks Beach that her sons were heirs...

Includes several letters and draft letters between Lady Lucy Hicks Beach, first Countess St Aldwyn, and Mrs Emily Susan Hicks Beach, and Frere Cholmeley and Co of London, the family solicitors

Helene Hicks Beach [nee Des Fosses] was married to Michael, the eldest surviving son of William Frederick Hicks Beach; she had apparently been married before and had had two children before she married Michael Hicks Beach, and as their father was still living, there was doubt over whether she had been married to him and whether they had been divorced, and therefore over the legitimacy of her Hicks Beach children and of the children she had before she married Michael Hicks Beach. She tried to claim that the baronetcy should be inherited by Michael Hicks Beach's eldest son by her, as Michael was the eldest son of the only brother of Sir Michael Edward Hicks Beach, first Earl St Aldwyn, and the first Earl's grandson had the earldom; however the conclusion was that the sons of Helene Hicks Beach had no claim to the baronetcy as it passed automatically to Michael John Hicks Beach, second Earl St Aldwyn