The Duke also had a bump, and in her
opinion this resemblance was evidence that the owner of the Baker-street
Bazaar and the Duke were one and the same person. While these statements
were causing some amount of public interest there was a new development
in this extraordinary case. The legal proceedings commenced by Mrs.
Druce were widely reported in the Press and accounts of them reached
Australia, where they were read by a man pursuing the calling of a
miner. His name is Mr. George Hollamby Druce, who put forward a prior
claim to the Dukedom than that urged by Mrs. Druce on behalf of her son.
His contention is that the Duke, as T.C. Druce, married in October,
1816, Miss Elizabeth Crickmer, of Bury St. Edmunds, by whom he had a son
named George. This youth took to a sea-faring life and eventually
settled in Australia, where he had a son, namely Mr. George Hollamby
Druce, whose claim to the title takes precedence of that set up by Mrs.
Druce for the offspring of the second marriage with Annie May Berkeley.
The question of the exhumation of the body appears to be involved in
legal technicalities as to the ownership of the vault.
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