Oliver Bodington
Encyclopedia
Oliver Eaton Bodington barrister
at law of the Inner Temple
, Licensee en Droit, University of Paris
, Member of the United States
Federal Bar and President of the British
Chamber of Commerce
, was born March 6, 1859 in Kingsford, Staffordshire
, the son of George Fowler Bodington (September 22, 1829 - May 8, 1902), a physician
, and his wife Caroline Mary Eaton (born 1825). He was baptised on Mary 4, 1859 in Kenilworth, Warwickshire
. Bodington attended the Giggleswick School
and graduated from the University of London
(1878). In 1885 he lived at Ashford House, Kingswinford
, near Dudley
. He was known for a Paris
-based legal practice and from his office at 6 Blve. Des Capuchins, he specialized in international law
and practice concerning domicile, marriage
, inheritance
, wills
and foreign companies and firms doing business in Paris.
and one of eight children of George Fowler Bodington. G. F. Bodington was a British physician who rose to the position of Medical Superintendent of the Provincial Asylum for the Insane in New Wilmington, British Columbia
. Oliver Bodington’s mother having died, his father remarried; his second wife, Alice Brooke Bodington (1840-1897) became a leading researcher and writer in the field of biology
and evolution
. Alice Bodington was a frequent contributor to scholarly journals including “The American Naturalist”.
Dr. and Mrs. Bodington removed to Canada
in the year 1887. Others of the siblings of Oliver Bodington were a brother who lived at Plymouth, England, a brother who lived in England place not specified, a brother who was a physician serving on the Empress liners
, a sister Miss Bodington of Winnipeg, a sister Mrs. Hamilton, of Winnipeg
and two siblings who were at home at the time of Mrs. Bodington’s death in 1897: Winnie and an unnamed brother.
. For instance, in a celebrated law suit involving ownership of artistic works, Bodington represented the renowned artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler (see "Whistler's Mother
"), whose portrait of Lady Eden (Sybil Frances Grey, later Lady Eden, the mother of Anthony Eden
), having been rejected by the Edens; Bodington witnessed and verified its over painting by the artist.
Bodington also conducted a successful sideline of helping monied American young ladies (those "lovely trans-Atlantic invaders" as Edith Wharton
called them) find suitable titled European husbands in the pre-World War I
marriage market.
Pursuant to these services, Bodington sued the American diplomat and Ambassador
John George Alexander Leishman
regarding unpaid fees relating to the property of his son-in-law, Louis de Gontaut-Biron. The reported fee was $6000, of which $2000 was paid before the suit was brought. Mr. Leishman insisted that Bodington was his daughter Marthe, Comtess de Gontaut-Biron’s lawyer, not his own.
Among his more celebrated cases, Bodington represented "Mrs. Marie Van Rensimer Barnes" in 1912, in the aftermath of a violent altercation in a Paris apartment that led to shots being fired by herself and her presumed lover, Walther von Mumm
(AKA Walter de Mumm
), of the well-known wine
merchant family. Dubbed the "champagne king" of Rheims, Baron von Mumm, a pioneer aviator
and future Olympic Games
bobsledder (1932, Lake Placid
), was wounded seriously, but refused to press charges. Immediately following the shooting, Mrs. Barnes (an alias, her real name being Mary Cleveland Rensimer) fled to London
's Carlton Hotel. She claimed to be the divorced wife of a Baltimore
physician, who, when contacted, revealed that he had never been married to Miss Rensimer and that she had in fact stalked him mercilessly in the year 1900. Mary Jane Cleveland Van Rensimer, (born Riegelsville, PA 30 April, 1888, died Reuil-Malmaison 12 August 1935), eventually became the second wife of Boris Aleksandrovich, Prince Golitsyn, (born 23 June 1880, Sima, Valdmiri, Russia; died 28 July 1947). They were married in Berlin on 23 Apr 1921 but divorced not long thereafter.
and an aficionado of French
ecclesiastical architecture. These avocations he translated into books:
“Thirty Seasons at Monte Carlo” (1924), "Bridge (card game) Wisdom for Beginners and Others" (1933) and “The Romance Churches of France” (1925). He was the author of books and articles relating to his profession, including "The French Law of Marriage" (1895), as well as the book “'Quiseen' and Other Thoughts” (1924).
Oliver Bodington married Mary Chapman Redner (Feb. 16, 1868 - April 22, 1920) a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Bodingtons were the parents of three sons: John (b. 1890), George (b. 1893) and Nicholas (b. 1904). John Bodington was a decorated World War I
hero. Nicholas Bodington
was a noted member of the British espionage service during World War II.
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
at law of the Inner Temple
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
, Licensee en Droit, University of Paris
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
, Member of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Federal Bar and President of the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Chamber of Commerce
Chamber of commerce
A chamber of commerce is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community...
, was born March 6, 1859 in Kingsford, Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
, the son of George Fowler Bodington (September 22, 1829 - May 8, 1902), a physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, and his wife Caroline Mary Eaton (born 1825). He was baptised on Mary 4, 1859 in Kenilworth, Warwickshire
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
. Bodington attended the Giggleswick School
Giggleswick School
Giggleswick School is an independent co-educational boarding school in Giggleswick, near Settle, North Yorkshire, England.- Early school :...
and graduated from the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
(1878). In 1885 he lived at Ashford House, Kingswinford
Kingswinford
Kingswinford is a suburban area in the West Midlands.Historically within Staffordshire, the area is mentioned in the Domesday Book its name relates to a ford for the King's swine - Latin Swinford Regis. The current significance is probably in tourism, education and housing...
, near Dudley
Dudley
Dudley is a large town in the West Midlands county of England. At the 2001 census , the Dudley Urban Sub Area had a population of 194,919, making it the 26th largest settlement in England, the second largest town in the United Kingdom behind Reading, and the largest settlement in the UK without...
. He was known for a Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
-based legal practice and from his office at 6 Blve. Des Capuchins, he specialized in international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
and practice concerning domicile, marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
, inheritance
Inheritance
Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...
, wills
Wills
Wills is a surname and may refer to:* Alfred Wills , English High Court judge and mountaineer* Andrew Wills , Australian rules footballer* Anneke Wills , British actress...
and foreign companies and firms doing business in Paris.
Childhood and family
Bodington was the grandson of British physician George BodingtonGeorge Bodington
George Bodington was a British general practitioner and pulmonary specialist.Born in Buckinghamshire and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, he served a surgical apprenticeship then studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital...
and one of eight children of George Fowler Bodington. G. F. Bodington was a British physician who rose to the position of Medical Superintendent of the Provincial Asylum for the Insane in New Wilmington, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. Oliver Bodington’s mother having died, his father remarried; his second wife, Alice Brooke Bodington (1840-1897) became a leading researcher and writer in the field of biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
and evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
. Alice Bodington was a frequent contributor to scholarly journals including “The American Naturalist”.
Dr. and Mrs. Bodington removed to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
in the year 1887. Others of the siblings of Oliver Bodington were a brother who lived at Plymouth, England, a brother who lived in England place not specified, a brother who was a physician serving on the Empress liners
Liners
"Liners" is a horticultural term referring to trays of very young plants, usually grown for sale to retailers or wholesalers, who then grow them to a larger size before selling them to consumers. Liners are usually grown from seed, but may also be grown from cuttings or tissue culture...
, a sister Miss Bodington of Winnipeg, a sister Mrs. Hamilton, of Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
and two siblings who were at home at the time of Mrs. Bodington’s death in 1897: Winnie and an unnamed brother.
Professional practice
Oliver Eaton Bodington numbered among his clients well-known British and American expatriates living in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. For instance, in a celebrated law suit involving ownership of artistic works, Bodington represented the renowned artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler (see "Whistler's Mother
Whistler's Mother
Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother, famous under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother, is an 1871 oil-on-canvas painting by American-born painter James McNeill Whistler. The painting is , displayed in a frame of Whistler's own design, and is now owned by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris....
"), whose portrait of Lady Eden (Sybil Frances Grey, later Lady Eden, the mother of Anthony Eden
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...
), having been rejected by the Edens; Bodington witnessed and verified its over painting by the artist.
Bodington also conducted a successful sideline of helping monied American young ladies (those "lovely trans-Atlantic invaders" as Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...
called them) find suitable titled European husbands in the pre-World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
marriage market.
Pursuant to these services, Bodington sued the American diplomat and Ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
John George Alexander Leishman
John George Alexander Leishman
John George Alexander Leishman was an American businessman and diplomat. He worked in various executive positions at Carnegie Steel Company and later served as an ambassador for the United States.-Biography:...
regarding unpaid fees relating to the property of his son-in-law, Louis de Gontaut-Biron. The reported fee was $6000, of which $2000 was paid before the suit was brought. Mr. Leishman insisted that Bodington was his daughter Marthe, Comtess de Gontaut-Biron’s lawyer, not his own.
Among his more celebrated cases, Bodington represented "Mrs. Marie Van Rensimer Barnes" in 1912, in the aftermath of a violent altercation in a Paris apartment that led to shots being fired by herself and her presumed lover, Walther von Mumm
Walther von Mumm
Baron Walther von Mumm was a German bobsledder who competed in the early 1930s. He finished seventh and last in the four-man event at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York....
(AKA Walter de Mumm
Mumm
G. H. Mumm & Cie, situated in Reims in northern France, is one of the largest Champagne producers worldwide.- History :It was founded by three brothers, Jacobus, Gottlieb and Phillip Mumm, German winemakers from the Rhine valley and G. Heuser and Friedrich Giesler on March 1, 1827 as P. A. Mumm...
), of the well-known wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
merchant family. Dubbed the "champagne king" of Rheims, Baron von Mumm, a pioneer aviator
Aviator
An aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...
and future Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
bobsledder (1932, Lake Placid
1932 Winter Olympics
The 1932 Winter Olympics, officially known as the III Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1932 in Lake Placid, New York, United States. The games opened on February 4 and closed on February 15. It would be the first winter olympics held in the United...
), was wounded seriously, but refused to press charges. Immediately following the shooting, Mrs. Barnes (an alias, her real name being Mary Cleveland Rensimer) fled to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's Carlton Hotel. She claimed to be the divorced wife of a Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
physician, who, when contacted, revealed that he had never been married to Miss Rensimer and that she had in fact stalked him mercilessly in the year 1900. Mary Jane Cleveland Van Rensimer, (born Riegelsville, PA 30 April, 1888, died Reuil-Malmaison 12 August 1935), eventually became the second wife of Boris Aleksandrovich, Prince Golitsyn, (born 23 June 1880, Sima, Valdmiri, Russia; died 28 July 1947). They were married in Berlin on 23 Apr 1921 but divorced not long thereafter.
Personal life
Bodington was a fixture at the bridge tables in Monte CarloMonte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
and an aficionado of French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
ecclesiastical architecture. These avocations he translated into books:
“Thirty Seasons at Monte Carlo” (1924), "Bridge (card game) Wisdom for Beginners and Others" (1933) and “The Romance Churches of France” (1925). He was the author of books and articles relating to his profession, including "The French Law of Marriage" (1895), as well as the book “'Quiseen' and Other Thoughts” (1924).
Oliver Bodington married Mary Chapman Redner (Feb. 16, 1868 - April 22, 1920) a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Bodingtons were the parents of three sons: John (b. 1890), George (b. 1893) and Nicholas (b. 1904). John Bodington was a decorated World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
hero. Nicholas Bodington
Nicholas Bodington
Nicholas Redner Bodington OBE was, during the Second World War, a head of F section of the Special Operations Executive. He took part in 4 missions to France.-Pre-war:...
was a noted member of the British espionage service during World War II.