Adrian Fort - Nancy: The Story of Lady Astor

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Contents

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank the Society of Authors for their kindness in providing me with an Authors Foundation Grant. I am also indebted to the trustees of the Royal Literary Fund for encouraging me in my research.

I am very grateful to members of the Astor and Langhorne families who, while wholly at arms length from this book, nevertheless allowed me access to private papers and gave me helpful advice; in particular I should like to thank Viscount Astor, David Astor, Lord Astor of Hever, Bronwen Lady Astor, Alice Astor, Micky Astor, Hon. Mrs Baring and Langhorne Gibson, Jnr.

Officials, historians, archivists and librarians, both in England and America, have been greatly helpful, and I have received patient and sound advice from archivists at the University of Reading; Balliol College, New College and the Bodleian Library at Oxford; the Royal Archives; Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, and Plymouth Central Library; the Bulldog Trust; the National Archives of Scotland; Lucy Cavendish College; Churchill Archives Centre; the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives; Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; Hertfordshire Record Office; British Library; the Lilly Library, Indiana University; Eton College Library; The Womens Library, London Metropolitan University; the Naval and Military Club; Hatfield House Archive; Boston Athenaeum; University of Virginia Library; the National Library of Wales; New England Historic Genealogical Society; Massachusetts Archives; Massachusetts Historical Society; Museum of the Confederacy, the Baring Archive; and the University of Exeter.

* * *

In particular I should like to thank Pat Maurakis, Christine Faunch, Dr Alex May, Dr Priscilla Roberts, Guy Baxter, Nathan Williams, Nancy Fulford, Verity Andrews, Jean Rose, Charles Arkwright, Alan Borthwick, Anna Sander, Penelope Bulloch, Penny Hatfield, Robin Harcourt Williams, Sir Henry Bedingfeld Bt., Sue Briggs, Dr Geoffrey Waddington, Dr Stuart Ball, Anne Morgan, Deborah Watson, Ian Criddle, Stacey Dyer, Colette Hobbs, Graham Naylor, Karen Davies, Pamela Clark, Nicholas Connell, Ana Da Silva, Craig Finlay, John Chignoli, Joe Maldonado, Lucy McCann, Kirsten Carter, John Hannigan, Autumn Haag, Dr Graham Jones; Mary McFarland, Marit Grujis, Anita Saunders, Caroline Herbert, Lynsey Robertson, Nicholas Robinson, Nicholas Baldwin, Haim A. Gottschalk, Lynn Shirey, Teresa Roane, Rhonda McClure, Aidan Haley, Dr David Bradshaw, Wendy Hawke, Dianne Shepherd, Sarah Charlton, Jenny Dancey, Andre Gailani, Isabel Holoway, Jane Keskar, Moira Lovegrove, John Orbell, John Lloyd, Jeremy McIlwaine, John Partington, Tessa Rawle, Jane Rawson, Sabine Schafferdt, Nicholas Scheetz, Christina Thompson, Lianne Smith, Naomi Van Loo, Prof Dr Johannes Tuchel, David Sutton, Mary Warnement.

For their invaluable help and skill I should like sincerely to thank my literary agents, Peters Fraser and Dunlop, and my publishers in England and America, Jonathan Cape and St. Martins Press, and especially Annabel Merullo, Alex Bowler, Steven Messer, Charles Spicer, Grainne Fox, Ellah Allfrey, Allison Caplin and Laura Williams.

Others who have in their various ways been of very great help in my preparation of this book include: Anthony Brotherton-Ratcliffe, Lady Abdy, Mark Amory, Viscount Asquith, Lt. Col. Thomas Baring, Dugald Barr, Mark Barrington-Ward, Lottie Barton, David Beamish, Jurgen Becker, Dr Nils Beckman, Gill Bennett, John Bignell, Denys Blakeway, Alexandra Bolitho, Hon. Lady Bonsor, Hon. Evelyn Boscawen, Michael Bottenheim, Graham Brady, MP, Charlotte Breese, James Bristow, John Bromley-Davenport, QC, Mrs Meriel Buxton, Dame Frances Campbell-Preston, Peter Carroll, Rosemary Castle, Sir Edward and Lady Cazalet, Victor Cazalet, Lord Charles Cecil, Mrs B.Chapman, Colin Chisholm, Anthony Clarke, Michael Clayton, Richard Davenport-Hines, Martha Davidson, Dr Ralph Davison, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Dodds-Parker, Helen Donald, Mrs Jan Douglas, Christopher Flynn, Elizabeth Fortescue, James Fox, Drusilla Fraser, Francis and Kishanda Fulford, Robin B. Gillie, Sir David Gilmour, Bt., John Gisbey, Earl of Gowrie, Amanda Gustin, Janie Hampton, Major David Hardy, Adam Healy, David Heathcoat-Amory, Nicholas Hextall, Harold and Annie Hickson, Nicholas Hiley, Gwen Hillman, Major Rex Hitchcock, Lady Holderness, Gregory Holyoake, the Reverend Hunter Miller, Christopher Hunwick, Kazuo Ishiguro, Dr Simon James, Justin Kaplan, Freddie Knox, Dr Robin Lane Fox, Victoria Legge-Bourke, Jeremy Lewis, Countess of Lichfield, Tony Lobl, Calder Loth, James Lowther, Viscountess Macmillan, Mark Grindon-Welch, Juliet Maxey, Hon. Hector McDonnell, Andrew Merriam, David Metcalfe, Anthony Mildmay-White, Tracy Murrell, Shahid Nazir, Tom Nelson, Adam Nicolson, Dowager Duchess of Northumberland, Conrad Ogrodowczyk, Anna Olatokun, David Oldrey, Lady Katherine Page, Lady Victoria Percy, Dan Pezzoni, Rachel Polonsky, Lord Ravensdale, Mrs Helen Roche, Audrey Roethenbaugh, Kenneth Rose, Hon. John Rous, Albert Roux, Robert Sackville-West, The Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury, Lady Salt, Adrian Scott Knight, Professor Robert Self, Julian Seymour, Richard Southby, James Srodes, Caroline Stanley, Christopher Sykes, Sir Tatton Sykes, Bt., Edward Synge, Lee Taylor, Ian Thorne, Heather Tylor, Rebecca Vick, Hugo Vickers, Juri Viehoff, Lyuba Vinogradova, Lady Walters, Catherine Wardroper, Earl of Wemyss, Cyril Whiting, Hon. Andrew Wigram, Lord Wigram, John T. Williams, Baroness Willoughby, Julia Wills, R. F. Wilson, Elizabeth Winn, Anne Wyndham, and Henry Wyndham.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1 Nancy as a debutante (the Estate of Nancy Astor)

2 Irene Langhorne

3 Chillie with a friend at Mirador

4 The Reverend Frederick Neve

5 Nancy during her brief time with Robert Shaw (the Estate of Nancy Astor)

6 Lord Revelstoke

7 Waldorf (the Estate of Nancy Astor)

8 Cliveden (the Estate of Nancy Astor)

9 The Thames running below Cliveden woods (courtesy of akg-images Ltd. Photograph: A. F. Kersting)

10 Nancy and celebrity guests (courtesy of akg-images Ltd)

11 Vote for you, Lady Astor? ( Plymouth City Council: Museums & Archives)

12 Nancy makes her first entrance into the House of Commons

13 The Member of Parliament, working in her boudoir (the Estate of Nancy Astor)

14 Nancy on her motorbike (the Estate of Nancy Astor)

15 Winston and Clementine Churchill with Nancy

16 The Shiver Sisters Ballet ( Evening Standard /Solo Syndication)

17 Nancy helping out on a municipal dustcart (the Estate of Nancy Astor)

18 Nancy amid the rubble and ruins of Plymouth

19 Nancy with her family (the Estate of Nancy Astor)

20 Nancy aged eighty (the Estate of Nancy Astor)

Prologue

When Nancy Astor first came to England, a little over a hundred years ago, a divorcee from America with a young son to look after, it seemed unlikely that she would soon find her way to becoming a famous hostess near the centre of the British Empires highest social spheres. That she would then leave a deep and lasting imprint on the whole political life of the nation was wholly unexpected. She was not even English, but instead a restless, controversial American dynamo very different from most of those who formed the society which, without much delay, she would enter.