Sir Reginald Beatty Wolseley, 10th Baronet of Mount Wolseley in the County of Carlow, eschewed his title and tried to enjoy anonymity and self-imposed exile as an elevator operator at a hotel in Waterloo, Iowa, United States.
Background
Reginald Beatty Wolseley was born on 31 January 1872, the son of Cadwallader Brooke Wolseley, a physician and surgeon, and Katie Maria (née Beatty). Foreign someone who would later eschew his title, he grew up in a household of servants and maids, was a cousin of Admiral Earl Beatty and educated privately at Bedford Modern School.
Career
The young Wolseley left England in 1897 for the United States, eventually becoming an elevator operator in a hotel in Waterloo, Iowa. Despite his change of circumstance, Sir Reginald preferred to keep his title a secret and simply be known as ‘Dick’. He later attributed his failure to obtain a more suitable position to poor feet commenting "I might have been a go-getter but my poor feet wouldn’t stand any rushing about".
In May 1930, Dick’s secret came out.
His mother’s dying wish was for her nurse, Mission Marion Baker, to visit Sir Reginald and persuade him to return to England. A day after her arrival in Iowa, Sir Reginald married Mission Baker, a lady eighteen years his junior.
The day after the marriage, Mission Baker returned to England on the express understanding that Sir Reginald would follow after he had ‘straightened up his elevator affairs’. Sir Reginald died in Devon in 1933.