A PLACE IN HISTORY
Apropos Harry and Meghan’s departure and the royal divorce between Peter and Autumn Phillips, much has been said about the Abdication. While many know that Wallis Simpson was previously married, the location of her divorce to her first husband is little known.
Mrs Simpson’s hearing was held at Ipswich Assizes, St Helen’s, Suffolk on 27 October, 1936. She was granted a divorce as her husband, Ernest, admitted adultery. The hearing was held in Ipswich as Mrs Simpson was living in nearby Felixstowe and this meant a quieter divorce without the publicity it would have garnered in London.
St Helen’s courthouse, a not insignificant castellated building, built in 1836 and extended in 1906, still stands today, although it is soon to be turned into a block of 40 flats.
There is a jail in the building which houses just one person. It really is tiny with just enough room to sit down. You get the impression it was often used to host a Saturday night drunk and the odd miscreant caught deploying his fists too exuberantly!
The rest, as they say, is history.