Neil Primrose

Neil Primrose, he second son of Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery and Hannah de Rothschild, was born on 14th December 1882. His father was prime minister from 1894-1895 and he was also active in the Liberal Party.

Primrose was commissioned into the Royal Buckinghamshire Hussars in 1909. Primrose continued to be involved in politics and he entered the House of Commons at the 1910 General Election as MP for Wisbech.

Soon after becoming a MP he began an affair with the nineteen year old, Eileen Graves. In 1912 she married Douglas Bray, a bus driver from Putney. According to Michael Kettle, the author of Salome's Last Veil : The Libel Case of the Century (1977): "She lived some three to five weeks with Bray, after which they parted for good. This, in fact, has all the appearance of being an arranged marriage, possibly to cover the birth of a Primrose child."

In February 1915, Herbert Asquith appointed Primrose as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The following month he married Victoria Stanley, the daughter of Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby. She gave birth to a daughter, Ruth Primrose, in April, 1916.

When David Lloyd George became prime minister in December 1916, he appointed Primrose as joint-Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury. He continued to serve in the British Army and he died on 15th November 1917 from wounds received in action during the Third Battle of Gaza.