Love interest gave her a ring – but was it a promise of marriage?

Jilted Evelyn Shervill produced letters and an engagement ring to endorse her claim but Harry Gregory insisted they had been nothing more than just good friends and he had merely bought the item as a present merely because she wanted it.

Once on friendly terms, they were now glaring at each other across the High Court as she sued him for £500 for breach of promise.

Shervill, a publican's daughter who lived at Hackwood, near Basingstoke, said after meeting in early 1926, they became engaged in June or July and in August he gave her the ring, saying in the presence of others: "Look what I have bought Evelyn, now she is mine."

But the course of true love, as they say, never runs smooth and In November he began apologising for the infrequency of his visits and letters: "Do forgive me, dear, for not giving you all the attention you deserve."

Insisting there was no one else in his thoughts, he tried to dispel her worries: "I should have come, dear, last Saturday if you had only written me, but I came to the conclusion that you did not want me to come along, it being evidently inconvenient."

Significantly, he added: "I can assure you to your suggestion that there is some other attraction is simply uncalled for. If I never move a yard again, I have never entertained or spoken to another lady since I last saw you at Hackwood."

Andover

Her counsel, Blake Odgers, insisted the material established a definite promise. "The correspondence was of an entirely affectionate nature, although not of the type some Sunday papers like to get hold of."

However, Shervill was so concerned that his affections appeared to be "cooling off" she begged him a letter: "Do please write and tell me what is wrong. I cannot think what it is,for you were quite all right when I left you. If I wait until after Christmas day, say you will come back to me. All this is making me feel very wrong not knowing where you are every day. I cannot think you have finished. I feel that you will come back soon. Every car I hear I think is yours."

When that brought no response, her mother wrote him a stinging rebuke: "I am very sorry you ever came to Basingstoke. You must remember you enticed her away from her young man then. She has wasted three of her best years of her life. If you haven't the decency to answer her letters, I want an answer from you."

That elicited another apology from Gregory, intimating he wanted to resume their relationship and the following August, at his suggestion, they holidayed together at a house owned by her aunt.

However, his interest in her again fell away and matters came to a head after he had avoided seeing her for several weeks. In a face to face confrontation, she demanded to know whether he intended marrying her.

"He replied that he would let her know but he did not do so," said Odgers.

Accordingly, in March, 1930, the publican's daughter took legal action.

Basingstoke

Her mother confirmed in the Winchester court sitting how Gregory had told her he was proposing marriage and asked if she thought they could keep house on £5 a week. Reassuring her about the relationship, he often told her: "Don't worry, everything is all right. Nothing will ever part us."

Gregory, who lived in the hamlet of Hatherden, near Andover and worked in the tyre trade, said he had no recollection of proposing marriage.

"I did not," when pressed for a more definite answer by Mr Justice Avory.

In relation to the ring, he explained: "Miss Shervill said, 'What a nice one. Would you like to buy it for me?' I did not want to appear mean and I told her 'if you would like it, you shall have it' and she put it on her finger. I had nothing to do with putting it on her finger. In fact, I did not notice what finger she put it on."

Gregory also contradicted her mother's assertion that "she's mine, nothing can part us' or words to that effect.

His barrister Salter Nicholls tried to convince jurors they were simply good friends friends and there had been no reference to marriage in their correspondence.

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"True, he expressed himself in terms of affection but there had been no promise to marry. The plaintiff saw the ring and fancied it but it was merely a present nothing then being said about an engagement."

The jury however dismissed that notion and found for the plaintiff who was awarded full damages with costs.