Adultery and Divorce

Survivor and social climber Jane Sparks, daughter of a carpenter, did become Mrs Aubrey.

As well as her youth (and handsome looks?), Jane must have had a winning personality, because it seems that Henry was besotted with her.

Barbara named her as co-respondent in her divorce application to prove Henry’s adultery.

A British newspaper ran this story: Barbara’s solicitor, acting as a ‘private eye’, traced the two to Paris where they were living the high life. A French waiter employed at the Hotel de la Paix, 28 Rue de Ville, revealed they had occupied the same apartment for 6 months, under the name of Colonel and Mrs Aubrey.

Proof indeed. A judicial separation was decreed on 30 July 1859.

But - two years earlier, on 12 April 1857, in the Parish Church of St Mary, Lambeth, Henry Aubrey, full age, widower, officer in the Army, son of Gabriel Aubrey, deceased, gent, married Jane Sparks, full age, spinster, daughter of Joseph Sparks, ‘gentleman’.

Much of that drama is told in Sons & Spouses, while the story of Jane and her future husbands is in preparation.