A nautical wedding was celebrated in Bedale 100 years ago when Margarita Gray, the fourth daughter of Sir William Cresswell Gray of Thorp Perrow, married Major William Ropner of West Hartlepool.
“The celebration of the occasion was advertised by the flow of cars and the posting of flags, banners and a series of streamers across the street while streamers were spread over the gate to Thorp Perrow Park and across the hall,” said the D&S Times.
The Grays were shipbuilders in West Hartlepool – they had built 13 ships for the Admiralty and countless more for the merchant fleet during World War I – and Ropners’ shipyard in Stockton was the third largest in the country with 1,500 employees.
“The bride was dressed in white chiffon, embroidered with silver-lined bugles in lines along the skirt that finish at the hem, with deep crystal fringes over a crystal lace underskirt,” D&S said, without explaining why a bugle should be sewn into a wedding dress. “The bodice was embroidered in lines and ended at the front with a plaque on which crystals hung like raindrops.”
It is also unclear why a tooth deposit should be mentioned there.
The reception took place at Thorp Perrow’s, including tea from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. for Bedale’s tenants, farmers and traders in the marquee.
“There was a great display of wedding favors including silver salts, muffiners and a mustard pot in a case from the Bedale Trades’ Association,” said the D&S.
A muffineer is, of course, a small silver sugar shaker specially designed for sprinkling sugar on muffins, and the newlyweds were clearly avid muffin eaters as they got several of them.
One of the most interesting details in the report is that the best man was Maj Ropner’s brother, Maj Leonard Ropner. When Sir William Cresswell Gray died in 1924, it was the father of the Ropner brothers, Sir Robert, Thorpe Perrow and Leonard Ropner who built the arboretum that is one such attraction today.
