Country House Society
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1 Members of a hunt taking advantage of the return of peace to ride out shortly after the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918. (Country Life, 7 December 1918).
2 Lady Diana Cooper, the former Lady Diana Manners, advertising ‘Icilma’ face powder in 1927. (Daily Sketch, 17 August 1927)
3 The gramophone provided music for many small impromptu parties during the dancing ‘mania’ of the 1920s. (The Bystander, 16 June 1926)
4 Brenda Dean Paul, one of the leading members of the ‘bright young set’, in the 1920s. (From Brenda Dean Paul, My First Life (n.d. c. 1935))
5 The former Loelia Ponsonby, looking rather solemn after her marriage to the 2nd Duke of Westminster (‘Bendor’ to his friends) on 20 February 1930. She was the Duke’s third wife and the ceremony took place at the Registry Office off Buckingham Palace Road.
6 Vogue was the leading fashion magazine of the 1920s. This front cover depicted a model with the desired slim ‘boyish’ physique.
7 Demonstrating the tango in the affluent surroundings of the Savoy Hotel.
8 King George V sailing his yacht Britannia in a race during Cowes week, which was the culminating event in the London social season. (From The Queen, 22 January 1936, published to mark the king’s death).
9 A shoot at Kilverstone in November 1928. The Maharajah of Patiala was among the guests admiring the large bag of pheasants. (Country Life, 17 November 1928)
10 The game cart collecting pheasants after the Kilverstone shoot in November 1928. (Country Life, 17 November 1928)
11 A member of Sussex shooting syndicate in 1924. (Country Life, 2 February 1924)
12 The Duchess of Sutherland beside the elephant she had shot as a trophy on her East African safari in 1921. (Country Life, 23 July 1921)
13 Fulke, the teenage 7th Earl of Warwick, enjoying winter sports c. 1928. Fulke was born in 1922 and succeeded to the title on the death of his alcoholic father on 31 January, 1928. (From Frances, Countess of Warwick, Life’s Ebb and Flow (1929))
14 Vogue showing an attractive outfit for winter sports, which enjoyed a great upsurge in popularity during the 1920s.
15 The all-important presentation at Court. A debutante, Miss Penelope Crofts, dressed for the first Court in 1926 and wearing the obligatory ostrich feathers on her head, as well as a train. (The Bystander, 16 June 1926)
16 The demure Miss Audrey Yarrow was to be presented at the first Court in 1926. (The Bystander, 16 June 1926)
17 A debutante with her disdainful mother waiting to be admitted to Buckingham Palace for her presentation at Court. (Punch, 22 May 1929)
18 One of London’s leading society hostesses: Lady Cunard, known as Emerald to her friends from 1926. (From Patrick Balfour, Society Racket, 1933)
19 The wealthy American-born Laura Corrigan who pushed her way to the top of London society in the 1920s. (Patrick Balfour, Society Racket, 1933)
20 A member of the nursery staff and the lady’s maid with the children of the Earl and Countess of Lichfield and their friends at Shugborough Hall, Staffordshire, in the 1920s. (Arts and Museum Service, Staffordshire County Council)
21 Contrasting Mayfair interiors at the end of the 1920s. The upper room reflects the clutter of an earlier era. The lower room depicts the lack of elaborate ornamentation in the modern age, with some Art Deco furnishings. (Patrick Balfour, Society Racket, 1933)
22 The butler was a key figure in ensuring that a large household ran smoothly. John Henry Inch in the dining room at Nidd Hall, Yorkshire, where he was employed by Viscount Mountgarret and his mother during the 1920s. There was a total indoor staff of sixteen, including two liveried footmen. (Arthur R. Inch)
23 Punch mocking a woman driver, as females began to exercise their greater independence.
24 A ‘High Society’ helper during the 1926 General Strike. Miss J. Leveson-Gower working as a volunteer at one of the temporary Hyde Park canteens. (The Bystander, 26 May 1926)
25 Two undergraduate volunteers working as platelayers on the railways during the 1926 General Strike. (The Bystander, 26 May 1926)
26 Punch poking fun at the excesses of the ‘freak’ parties organised by the ‘Bright Young People’ in the 1920s. (Punch, 4 November 1929)
27 Punch drawing attention to the ‘Baby Party’ held in July 1929, which caused much annoyance to the residents of Rutland Gate in London. (Punch, 4 November 1929)
28 The Mozart Party organised by David Tennant on 29 April 1930, at the New Burlington Street Galleries. When they left in the early hours some of the guests saw workmen digging up a gas pipe in Piccadilly. Patrick Balfour is shown standing on top of a mound of rubble, while Cecil Beaton has seized a pneumatic drill. The former Elizabeth Ponsonby, now Elizabeth Pelly, was standing to Beaton’s right. (Patrick Balfour, Society Racket, 1933)
29 Vogue continued to provide the latest fashion news into the 1930s and beyond.
30 A sign of things to come. A London traffic jam. The woman driver has brought her knitting along. (Punch)
Notes
Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading, is abbreviated to MERL.
1 The Impact of War: 1914–1918
1. J. M. Winter, The Great War and the British People, 2nd edn (Basingstoke, 2003), p. 71. Winter suggests that 722,785 British servicemen died in the war, and there were also 15,000 deaths among the crews and passengers of merchant or fishing vessels. He estimates there were 1,266 civilian fatalities from air and sea bombardment. Of 5,215,162 men who served in the Army, 670,375 died or were killed, and a further 1,643,469 were wounded. That meant that 12.91 per cent of those who served died or were killed in the war and 31.51 per cent were wounded.
2. Madeleine Beard, English Landed Society in the Twentieth Century (London, 1989), p. 26.
3. Jennifer Ellis, ed., Thatched with Gold. The Memoirs of Mabell, Countess of Airlie (London, 1962), p. 129.
4. Richard Davenport-Hines, Ettie. The Intimate Life and Dauntless Spirit of Lady Desborough (London, 2008), p. 166.
5. Philip Ziegler, Diana Cooper. The Biography of Lady Diana Cooper (Harmondsworth, 1983 edn), p. 57.
6. Arthur Marwick, The Deluge. British Society and The First World War (London, 1965), p. 143.
7. John Charmley, Duff Cooper. The Authorised Biography (London, 1997 edn), p. 14.
8. Anne Chisholm, Nancy Cunard (Harmondsworth, 1981 edn), p. 55.
9. Hugh Ford, ed., Nancy Cunard: Brave Poet Indomitable Rebel 1896–1965 (Philadelphia, New York, London, 1968), p. 12. Chisholm, Nancy Cunard, p. 52.
10. Ford, ed., Nancy Cunard, pp. 18–19.
11. Chisholm, Nancy Cunard, p. 55.
12. The Bystander, 29 July 1914.
13. The Countess of Carnarvon, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey. The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle (London, 2011), p. 125.
14. Margot Asquith, Autobiography (Vol. 2) (Harmondsworth, 1937 edn), pp. 117–119.
15. John Vincent, ed., The Crawford Papers (Manchester, 1984), p. 340.
16. The Countess of Carnarvon, Lady Almina, p. 126.
17. The Countess of Carnarvon, Lady Almina, pp. 121–124.
18. W. J. Reader, At Duty’s Call. A Study in Obsolete Patriotism (Manchester, 1988), p. 104.
19. The Bystander, 22 July 1914. ‘To the London newspapers,’ it declared, ‘there seem to be no European problems at all … To London … there is Ulster, Ulster, and only Ulster.’
20. ‘English History’ in the Annual Register for 1914 (London, 1915), p. 175.
21. Vincent, ed., The Crawford Papers, p. 341.
22. Beard, English Landed Society, p. 29.
23. Randolph S. Churchill, Lord Derby. ‘King of Lancashire’ (London, 1959) p. 184. According to Country Life, 24 July 1915, when the war broke out, Lord Derby set himself the target of raising recruits ‘not by the thousand, but by the tens of thousand’.
24. Reader, At Duty’s Call, p. 118.
25. Pamela Horn, Rural Life in England in The First World War (New York, 1984 edn), p. 28.
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26. Mark Pottle, ed., Champion Redoubtable. The Diaries and Letters of Violet Bonham Carter. 1914–1945 (London, 1998), pp. 7–8.
27. Horn, Rural Life, p. 28.
28. Country Life, 29 August 1914.
29. The Bystander, 12 August 1914.
30. Davenport-Hines, Ettie, p. 185.
31. Beard, English Landed Society, pp. 28–29.
32. Horn, Rural Life, p. 25.
33. Winter, The Great War, p. 93.
34. Lady Cynthia Asquith, Diaries 1915–1918 (London, 1968), pp. 20, 85 and 90.
35. Asquith, Diaries, p. 97. On 1 July 1916, she heard of the death of her eldest brother: ‘my Beautiful brother that I have loved so since I was a baby’.
36. Pamela Horn, Ladies of the Manor: Wives and Daughters in Country House Society, 1830–1918 (Stroud, 1997 edn), p. 201.
37. The Countess of Carnarvon, Lady Almina, pp. 143–144.
38. Horn, Ladies of the Manor, p. 198–199.
39. Davenport-Hines, Ettie, pp. 183 and 187.
40. Davenport-Hines, Ettie, p. 187.
41. Vincent ed., The Crawford Papers, p. 349.
42. Vincent ed., The Crawford Papers, p. 341.
43. Vincent ed., The Crawford Papers, pp. 349 and 351.
44. Country Life, 22 August 1914. It was suggested that some of the houses might serve as convalescent homes, rather than as base hospitals with their demand for scarce nursing staff.
45. Ziegler, Diana Cooper, pp. 64–66.
46. Ziegler, Diana Cooper, pp. 70–71.
47. Ziegler, Diana Cooper, p. 71.
48. Diana Cooper, Autobiography (Wilton, Salisbury, 1979 edn), 129–130.
49. Cooper, Autobiography, p. 142.
50. Ziegler, Diana Cooper, pp. 66–67. Cooper, Autobiography, pp. 135–136.
51. Lois Gordon, Nancy Cunard. Heiress, Muse, Political Idealist (New York, 2007), pp. 52, 55, 59 and 62.
52. Stanley Jackson, The Savoy. The Romance of a Great Hotel (London, 1964), pp. 60–61. Andrew Cook, Cash for Honours. The Story of Maundy Gregory (Stroud, 2008) p. 36.
53. Gordon, Nancy Cunard, pp. 63–64.
54. Chisholm, Nancy Cunard, p. 68. Gordon, Nancy Cunard, p. 64.
55. Horn, Ladies of the Manor, p. 203.
56. Rosina Harrison, Rose: My Life in Service (London, 1975), 22.
57. Asquith, Diaries 1915–1918, p. 156, entry for 19 April 1916.
58. Horn, Ladies of the Manor, p. 203. For an index of retail prices during the war years see, for example, The British Economy Key Statistics 1900–1970 (London and Cambridge Economic Service, n.d. c. 1971), p. 12.
59. Horn, Rural Life, p. 29. Horn, Ladies of the Manor, p. 203.
60. Country Life, 4 September 1915.
61. Pamela Horn, Behind the Counter. Shop Lives from Market Stall to Supermarket (Stroud, 2006), p. 177. By 1918 there was rationing of meat, tea, butter and margarine.
62. Asquith, Diaries, 1915–1918, p. 269, entries for 6 and 7 February 1917.
63. Asquith, Diaries 1915–1918, p. 269, entry for 8 February 1917.
64. Marion Fowler, Blenheim. Biography of a Palace (London, 1989), p. 217.
65. Ellis, ed., Thatched with Gold, pp. 131–133.
66. F. M. L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1963), p. 328.
67. Country Life, 16 November 1918. Thompson, English Landed Society, p. 329.
68. Country Life, 14 and 28 December 1918.
69. The Countess of Carnarvon, Lady Almina, p. 236.
70. Horn, Ladies of the Manor, pp. 203–204.
71. William Shawcross, Queen Elizabeth. The Queen Mother (London, 2009), pp. 52–53, 56 and 59.
72. Airlie MSS. in the British Library, Add.MSS.82761, f.66, 8 October 1917.
73. Airlie MSS. Add.MSS.82761, f.78, 19 February 1918.
74. Anne de Courcy, Circe. The Life of Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry (London, 1992), pp. 107–110.
75. de Courcy, Circe, p. 133. Pamela Horn, Women in the 1920s (Stroud, 2010 edn), p. 29.
76. Diaries of Margot Asquith 1917–1923 cm Microfilm X 15/7 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, entry for 28 December 1918, reverse f.56.
77. de Courcy, Circe, pp. 134–135.
78. de Courcy, Circe, pp. 115–116.
79. de Courcy, Circe, pp. 116–118.
80. Horn, Rural Life, pp. 39–40.
81. Winter, The Great War, pp. 97–98.
82. The will was written on Garrick Club notepaper, dated 11 August 1914, f.195 in Violet Milner MSS, VM27 at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Lady Cecil married Lord Milner after the death of her first husband. She copied out correspondence and all the information she could glean about her son’s death in VM.27. Fragment from the diary of Helen Cecil, 12 August 1914, also in VM.27.
83. George Cecil to his mother, 27 August 1914 in VM.27, f.5.
84. See correspondence in VM.27. On 6 November 1914, Brigadier General Robert Scott Kerr wrote to Lady Cecil, noting optimistically that ‘it is encouraging that there is still some hope that all may be well with him, so many are being heard of as safe about whom we had given up all hope’. Account of George’s death from Private J. Snowden, 24 November 1914. He was wounded in the same action and witnessed George being shot. Snowden himself was taken prisoner, but rescued when the French reoccupied the land where his German field hospital was sited.
85. Helen Hardinge, Loyal to Three Kings. A Memoir of Alec Hardinge, Private Secretary to the Sovereign 1920–1943 (London, 1967), p. 19.
86. The Hon. Julian Grenfell to Mrs Astor, 21 November 1914 in Astor MSS. MS.1416/1/2/14 at MERL.
87. Davenport-Hines, Ettie, pp. 190–194.
88. Asquith, Diaries 1915–1918, entry for 27 May 1915, p. 31.
89. Asquith, Diaries 1915–1918, entry for 12 June 1915, p. 41.
90. Billy Grenfell to Nancy Astor, postmarked 2 July 1915, in Astor MSS. MS.1416/1/4/42 at MERL.
91. Billy Grenfell to Nancy Astor, postmarked 14 July 1915, in Astor MSS. MS.1416/1/4/42 at MERL.
92. Billy Grenfell to Nancy Astor, undated, in Astor MSS. MS.1416/1/4/42 at MERL.
93. Davenport-Hines, Ettie, pp. 199–200. The attack ended ‘as it was bound to end in the loss of very nearly the whole of a battalion’.
94. John Julius Norwich, ed., The Duff Cooper Diaries (London 2006 edn), p. 14, entry for 3 August 1915.
95. Asquith, Diaries 1915–1918, p. 103, entry for 21 November 1915.
96. Horn, Ladies of the Manor, pp. 195–196.
97. Ziegler, Diana Cooper, p. 96.
98. Asquith, Diaries 1915–1918, p. 323, entry for 30 July 1917.
99. Norwich, ed., The Duff Cooper Diaries, p. 46, entry for 14 January 1917.
100. Norwich, ed., The Duff Cooper Diaries, p. 41, entry for 6 December 1916.
101. Ziegler, Diana Cooper, p. 101. Norwich, ed., The Duff Cooper Diaries, p. 53, entry for 17 May 1917.
102. Norwich, ed., The Duff Cooper Diaries, pp. 53–54, entries for 19 and 21 May, 18 June and 5 and 6 July 1917. On 22 June, he noted: ‘Today I left the Foreign Office without a single regret.’
103. Norwich, ed., The Duff Cooper Diaries, 22 November 1917 and 27 February 1918, pp. 60 and 65–66. On 23 November 1917, he received news of the death of Edward Horner, almost the last of his pre-war circle to have survived so far: ‘By his death,’ he wrote in his diary, ‘our little society loses one of the last assets that gave it distinction. And I think we have paid more than our share.’
104. Norwich, ed., The Duff Cooper Diaries, p. 66, entry for 1 March 1918.
105. Norwich, ed., The Duff Cooper Diaries, pp. 71–72, entry for 11 June 1918.
106. Norwich ed., The Duff Cooper Diaries, pp. 70–71, entry for 21 May 1918.
107. Ziegler, Diana Cooper, p. 121. Charmley, Duff Cooper, pp. 23–25.
108. Horn, Ladies of the Manor, pp. 215–216. Horn, Rural Life, p. 40.
109. Horn, Rural Life, pp. 204–205.
110. Country Life, 16 No
vember 1918.
111. Helen Cecil to Lady Violet Cecil, 12 November 1918 in Violet Milner MSS, VM.28 at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
112. Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, The Long Weekend. A Social History of Great Britain 1918–1939 (London, 1991 edn), pp. 17–18.
113. Norwich, ed., The Duff Cooper Diaries, 11 November 1918, p. 85.
114. Davenport-Hines, Ettie, pp. 228–229. Other bereaved mothers wrote to comfort one another, like Elizabeth Kenmare, whose son Dermot had been killed. She told Ettie: ‘PEACE DAY: I know, darling, that your agony was doubled.’
115. Norwich, ed., The Duff Cooper Diaries, pp. 86 and 89 entries for 12 November 1918 and 9 and 12 December 1918.
116. Graves and Hodge, The Long Weekend, p. 22. Chisholm, Nancy Cunard, p. 70.
117. Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Grace and Favour (London, 1961), pp. 83–84.
2 Adjusting to Peace: 1919–1921
1. Helen Hardinge, Loyal to Three Kings. A Memoir of Alec Hardinge, Private Secretary to the Sovereign 1920–1943 (London, 1967), pp. 22–23.
2. Colin Clifford, The Asquiths (London, 2002), pp. 471 and 477.
3. Clifford, The Asquiths, pp. 432 and 471.
4. See entry for Edward Turnour, 6th Earl Winterton in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).
5. Winterton Diary No. 24, entry for 23 March 1920, at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Alan Houghton Brodrick, Near to Greatness. A Life of the Sixth Earl Winterton (London, 1965), p. 187, dates the quotation wrongly and reproduces it inaccurately.