Mitford family

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Mitford sisters
)

The Mitford family in 1928
Coat of arms of Barons Redesdale

The Mitford family is an aristocratic English family whose principal line had its seats at

British peerage, in 1802 and 1902, under the title Baron Redesdale.[1]

The family became particularly known in the 1930s and later for the six Mitford sisters, great-great-great-granddaughters of William Mitford, and the daughters of

Diana the Fascist, Jessica the Communist, Unity the Hitler-lover; Nancy the Novelist; Deborah the Duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur".[2]

Background

The family traces its origins in

Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main line had its family seat first at Mitford Castle, then Mitford Old Manor House, prior to building Mitford Hall in 1828; all three are near Mitford, Northumberland
.

Mitford siblings

Mitford sisters

Nearly full-length group portrait of five well-dressed women standing in a field. Their ages range from roughly 20 to 30; their hair is cut short of the shoulders in elegant 1930s or 1940s styles; four of the five wear skirts down just below the knee, and one a longer coat. Two wear pearls.
Jessica, Nancy, Diana, Unity, and Pamela Mitford in 1935. Of the six sisters, the youngest, Deborah, is absent.

The sisters gained widespread attention for their stylish and controversial lives as young people, and for their public political divisions between communism and fascism.

stately homes
in England.

Jessica and Deborah married nephews of prime ministers

International Brigade.[9] Jessica's memoir, Hons and Rebels, describes their upbringing, and Nancy drew upon her family members for characters in her novels. In 1981, Deborah became politically active when she and her husband Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire, joined the new Social Democratic Party.[6]

The sisters and their brother Thomas were the children of

country house with emotionally distant parents and a large household with numerous servants; this family dynamic was not unusual for upper-class families of the time. The parents disregarded formal education of women of the family, and they were expected to marry at a young age to a financially well-off husband. The children had a private language called "Boudledidge" (/ˈboʊdəldɪdʒ/
), and each had a different nickname for the others.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, their political views came into sharper relief. "Farve" remained a conservative who had long favoured the

anti-Semites verbally during World War II who had called for all Jews in England to be killed, and also wanted an early end to the war with Germany before England lost any more money.[12]

Tom, a fascist, refused to fight Germany but volunteered to fight against

Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, was imprisoned in London from May 1940 until November 1943 under Defence Regulation 18B. Unity, fanatically devoted to Hitler and Nazism, was distraught over Britain's war declaration against Germany on 3 September 1939, and tried to commit suicide later that day by shooting herself in the head. She failed in the suicide attempt, but suffered brain damage that eventually led to her early death in 1948. Jessica, a communist, had moved to the US, but her husband Esmond Romilly, a Republican veteran from the Spanish Civil War who volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II, died in 1941 when his bomber developed mechanical problems over the North Sea and went down.[6] In numerous letters Jessica said that her daughter Constancia received a pension from the Canadian government after Esmond's death until she turned 18.[6] The strong political rift between Jessica and Diana left them estranged from 1936 until their deaths, although they did speak to each other in 1973, as their eldest sister Nancy was on her deathbed. Aside from Jessica and Diana's estrangement, the sisters kept in frequent contact with each other in the decades after World War II. The sisters were prolific letter-writers, and a substantial body of correspondence still exists, principally letters between them.[2]

Ancestry

In popular culture

Gallery

The Mitford sisters by William Acton:

References

Informational notes

  1. ^ Daughter of Thomas Gibson Bowles.

Citations

  1. ^ Burke's Peerage, 107th edn. (London 2003).
  2. ^ a b "Those utterly maddening Mitford girls", Ben Macintyre, The Times, London, 12 October 2007. Retrieved 28 July 2009. Archived 26 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Mitford 2010, p. ix.
  4. ^ Charlotte Mosley, editor, The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters, London: Fourth Estate, 2007, p. 264. According to her sister Jessica, Pamela Mitford had become "a you-know-what-bian" [lesbian].
  5. ^ Mitford 2010, p. 40.
  6. ^ a b c d e Mitford, Jessica (2006). Sussman, Peter Y. (ed.). Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
  7. ^ "The strange case of the aristocrat, Hitler and the tiny Scottish island New book to reveal final years of Mitford sister". HeraldScotland. 26 June 2005. Retrieved 31 May 2021.
  8. ^ https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/sep/12/deborah-duchess-of-devonshire-chatsworth
  9. ISBN 978-1999654306
  10. ^ 26 Rutland Gate, Knightsbridge, SW7 > Notable Abodes |http://www.notableabodes.com/abode-search-results/abode-details/139176/26-rutland-gate-knightsbridge-london
  11. ^ Mitford Girls at 'This Is Local London' 2001. Retrieved 14 December 2013
  12. ^ a b Reynolds, Paul (14 November 2003). "Nancy Mitford spied on sisters". BBC News. Retrieved 25 November 2010.
  13. ^ "Jessica Fellowes". Amazon. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
  14. ^ "Peaky Blinders Cast". IMDB.
  15. ^ Heritage, Stuart (22 September 2012). "The Thick of It: lines of the week – episode three".

Bibliography

  • Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire (2010). Wait for Me!: Memoirs. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
    ISBN 978-0-374-20768-7
    .

Further reading

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mitford_family&oldid=1218751402#Mitford_sisters"