ONCE A LABOURER, NOW AN EARL

THE LEINSTER LEADER 13 May 1939

ONCE A LABOURER

NOW AN EARL

LORD NAAS’S ROMANTIC CAREER

Earning 45s. a week as a builder’s labourer at Croydon, 49-year-old Lord ("plain Bourke without the mister") Naas  has become the ninth Earl of Mayo. Lord Naas, ex-Kenya coffee planter, former film actor, married two years ago, succeeds his father, the eighth Earl  of Mayo, who has died at his Maidenhead (Berkshire) home at the age of 79.
As a labourer Lord Naas was known as Ulick Henry Bourke ― the family name. "Otherwise plain Bourke without the mister, that’s me," he said at the time. "I would rather be a bricklayer and be a free man than be pushed into a cushy job to be continually under the thumb  of other people," he said. "Why not this job? I admit it hasn’t been easy. There was a time when I had only one meal a day."
Lord Naas, when a bricklayer, lived in a Pimlico boarding-house room. Now he lives in Chesham Place, Belgrave  Square. He studied a film course for six months, and appeared on the screen for one minute in the film "The Gap." He had to  register horror. Then, in 1937, he married Miss Noel Haliburton Wilson at a London registry office. He shared the wedding ring that  day. A wide gold ring was sliced horizontally, the bride and bridegroom each wearing half.
Lady Naas stated at the wedding reception: "Lord Naas is independent and ambitious. He did not want to marry money."She said to me today: "Since our marriage my husband has gone in for business. He is now interested in a rifle  invention, which he hopes the Government will take up."
The new earl’s father, a chartered civil engineer and land agent, was on the chief engineer’s staff during the  construction of the Forth Bridge, and was resident engineer on the Manchester Ship Canal during its construction.
A few years ago he devised a scheme for the storing of the Thames flood waters in four lake reservoirs. He estimated  that it would cost £3,400,000. He was twice married. His first wife, whom he married in 1887, was Miss Ethel Freeman, of Rockfield, Herefordshire.  She died in 1913, and three years later he married Miss Margaret Scott.

Lord Naas was once a builder’s labourer in Croydon. An article from the Leinster Leader of 13 May 1939.