Lady Winifred Burghclere

Some Further Details from the writer William Cross about his new book on Highclere folk

“Lady Winifred Burghclere and her Troublesome Daughters

Four Immoral Tales From The Roaring Twenties”

ISBN 10 1-905914-41-5

ISBN 13 978-1-905914-41-8

THE BOOK IS NOW AVAILABLE

Society biographer William Cross, has written several books about members of the Carnarvon family of Highclere Castle. Among his current projects is a new book in 2017 exploring what made the Lady Winifred Herbert, later Lady Winifred Burghclere, ( 1864-1933 ) tick. The frosty-faced sister of Lord Carnarvon of Tutankhamun fame, Winifred was a well regarded chronicler of the lives of Restoration toffs. She was also twice married and the mother of four.

Lady Winifred’s early years were spent at Highclere Castle, the back drop to TV’s ‘Downton Abbey’.

“ Winifred experienced a dysfunctional childhood ” says William Cross “ she lost her mother, Lady Evelyn Stanhope, the 4th Countess of Carnarvon at the age of just 10, but emotionally her siblings were far more affected by the loss of their mum.

Winifred developed a cold - near frozen and firm- state of being, her trademark was an unemotional attitude, always detached, with a more than slightly overbearing persona, an inner defence mechanism perhaps, she was a classic case of a born snob, pretty and clever. When playing games or riding ponies she dished out dasterdly leadership to her brother George and two sisters Margaret and ‘ Baby’ ( Vera) almost like an Army Commanding Officer. George said she was ‘rigid’ .... “like a Confederate General... we heard about that hard type in the school room ”.

Winifred quickly learned from dad about the art of the possible and the merits of managing discretion and how best to keep a secret. She became her father’s trusted companion and confidante, including acting as his private secretary copying ministerial and State papers. Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon was as aloof as Winifred, a Victorian Tory Cabinet Minister named ‘Twitters’ on account of a certain nervous disposition..... ”

Coupled with an appraisal of Lady Winifred family life as a Herbert and later life and times with two warped marriages, Cross will take a look at Winifred's most attention-grabbing contemporaries.

But the clue to Cross’ real angle for the new book is included in the second half of the snappy title of “ Four Immoral Tales from the Roaring Twenties”, this is the controversial story of Winifred’s four wayward daughters.

Cross explains:

“ Perhaps their mother makes it five immoral tales, we shall see. But considering how straight-laced and pow-faced Winifred was, the girls were hemmed in, largely kept under the dictatorial grip, in fact “rigid” ( using her brother George’s word to describe Winifred ) fits Winifred's rule at home: she had a repressive regime on everything. No wonder the girls snapped back. “

Cross elaborates: “ The girls were bullied, schooled by governesses, although that part of their upbringing is not accurately represented in published texts. It will be good to reveal the true element. Some misrepresentations in the relationships with their inner family, their rather dotty and gullible father, Herbert Gardner, as well as their collection of relatives and of course by their own choice girl friends, men friends, there are lots of good spoils to come.”

The girls were named Juliet, Alathea, Mary and Evelyn Gardner, but each had a long string of other forenames. They began as a peculiar mix of the prudish and moral ( Cross say they were “as naive as nuns “) then they became the complete flip side of that, amoral, and unconventional.

Cross comments “ that’s what makes them the remarkable creatures they are : they are products of the Bright Young Things era. Ideal territory for a biographical study with the background of the roaring twenties where I am already very busy turning over hundreds of letters featuring Society girls like the Gardners – or fellow travellers in their various roles and guises as chaparones, debs or newly married - who with others have been largely overlooked for special focus before. It’s because they jump in and out of Society fixtures, engagement diaries and are left off situ on the fringe circuit of the era, theme dances and parties and drink, drugs and sex fuelled romps on the London scene.”

Cross wants to shine some light on the predatory youths and men who ruthlessly chased after the Gardner girls. The era of the 1920s is familiar ground to Cross with his published books that capture the decade from writing up the lifestyles and friends and enemies of the homosexual Hon Evan Morgan, and his wayward sister Gwyneth, as well as the charismatic flapper Hon. Lois Sturt, the daughter of Lady Feo Alington ( Cross quips "an equally snobbish fiend like Winifred Burghclere").

Cross highlights the following:

“The Gardner girls overlapped with some interesting men of the time too who are due more of the spotlight, Geoffrey Fry was one, a member of the Fry’s chocolate family, who was Private Secretary to several Prime Ministers, he married the very disturbed Gardner daughter, the slim, boyish Alathea. Trouble was Geoffrey actually liked to sleep with boys.

Then there’s Mr Snooty Waugh the husband of ‘bun face’ Evelyn Gardner, the first Mrs Evelyn Waugh, the writer of Scoop and Brideshead who pops up in the infamous ‘ He Evelyn-She Evelyn’ partnership. A further conquest for one the girls was a Royal Prince of dubious extraction, as well as several of them being chased by Turks and courtiers, and resulting in secrets flings. These had to be kept secret as Lady Winifred constantly watching, tipping off other watchers and interfering in her daughter’s lives.

At Royal level the girls were easy pickings since from a young age two of them were best of friends with Princess Mary, daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. The Princess was a godmother to Mary Gardner, when she was Mrs Geoffrey Hope Morley.

Mary Gardner’s second marriage was to a real-life James Bond figure, Alan Hillgarth, but much remains unchartered in Mary’s adulterous decade between husbands. There are also several previously unmentioned figures caught in the Gardiner girls’ headlights, men who had reputation for seduction, others of both sexes were sucked into the girls’ honey traps. There was also an accomplished British artist of the 20th century who was swallowed up like the whale that gobbled up Jonah.”

“I’m enjoying researching the early years and colourful antics of the Gardner girls. Alathea, Winifred’s second daughter first turned up in my researches for an earlier book I wrote on Hon. Gwyneth Ericka Morgan, the daughter of Lord and Lady Tredegar, a drug fiend whose body was fished out of the Thames in 1925. There’s some material from the Gwyneth Morgan research that I didn’t use which is still fresh – it will surprise readers the way Alathea and Gwyneth’s lives crossed...the girls loved each other. ”

The oddest of the Gardner litter was the oldest, Juliet. She walked out of her marriage from the absolute terror of being first touched by a man. She preferred the company of dogs and cats and working class women whom she offered a roof to in exchange for housework and companionship.

All Winifred’s daughters were born from her second marriage to the dotty, dandy, Dickensian hip-style actor, playwright and would be politician, Herbert Gardner, who was raised in the peerage in 1895 as Lord Burghclere, but died before his daughters went off the rails.

Cross muses “ the girls were all Honourables, except their honour was not insisted upon....they disgraced themselves with their unladylike behaviour in and out of oddball marriages and relationships with men and women.

It all’s there to tell, excite, amuse, tease and tantalise, lesbian romps, excesses of pleasure and careless unwanted pregnancies...It was just as well their Aunt Almina was an abortionist.....”

Cross’ researches are always thorough, he has a track record for unearthing old scandals that been swept under the carpet :

“ Lady Winifred had a close escape in her first marriage to Hon. Alfred Byng, a member of a large but curiously little mentioned family who were the Earls of Strafford. Alfred died within a year of wedlock averting the prospect of an unhappy life for Winifred as Byng was impotent.

Cross has also been looking at the Byng family:

“ There is one famous member of the Byng clan in recent times, the Great War General Julian ‘Bingo’ Byng, who became a diplomat, he was Governor General of Canada... Winifred’s first husband was Bingo’s brother, an odd, cold fish as was his other brother, ‘Poodles’ Byng, who succeeded to the family titles but then threw himself under a train following a bizarre Society scandal. That will make an interesting footnote to the book... but on second thoughts, it could be a whole chapter, as George Carnarvon and his chum Prince Victor Duleep Singh were implicated in the same cause for the fall from grace as ‘Poodles’ Byng. ”

The new book is now available. William Cross still welcomes any material, photographs, anecdotes, letters, or just gossip on the Burghcleres, Byngs, Carnarvons et al for inclusion in any updated version.

Please contact Cross by e-mail

Lady Winifred Burghclere