Meet Britain's First Black Marchioness Emma McQuiston

Ceawlin Thynn, Viscount Weymouth, married the daughter of a Nigerian oil tycoon yesterday, but the ceremony was overshadowed by the conspicuous absence of his parents who refused to attend as a family feud rumbled on. Emma McQuiston will make history when she becomes the first black Marchioness in Britain after her wedding to the future Marquess of Bath at the family seat of Longleat.

But she claims her relationship with the aristocrat has caused upset among the British elite because of her ethnicity and background.

In an interview with society magazine Tatler, the 27-year-old said: 'There's class and then there's the racial thing. It's a jungle and I'm going through it and discovering things as I grow up.

'I’m not super-easily offended but it’s a problem when someone’s making you feel different or separate because of your race. I have never had anything horrible said or happen, but it is something you sense. You can just tell with some people.’

But the Marquess of Bath – famous for his string of ‘wifelets’ – and his real wife, Hungarian-born Anna Gael, 69, boycotted the ceremony, which took place at Longleat House yesterday afternoon.