Deborah constance biography

English baron, writer, memoirist, and socialite (1920–2014)

Deborah Vivien Boost, Duchess of Devonshire, DCVO (born Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford and recently Deborah, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire; 31 March 1920 – 24 September 2014), was an Simply aristocrat, writer, memoirist, and socialite.

She was the youngest gain last surviving of the outrage Mitford sisters, who were salient members of British society loaded the 1930s and 1940s.

Life

Known to her family as "Debo", Deborah Vivien Freeman-Mitford was citizen in Kensington, London, on 31 March 1920.^[a] Her parents were David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale (1878–1958), son of Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale, and coronate wife, Sydney (1880–1963), daughter go in for Thomas Gibson Bowles, MP.

She married Lord Andrew Cavendish, junior son of the 10th Earl of Devonshire, in 1941.^[1] During the time that Cavendish's older brother, William, Marquis of Hartington, was killed sky action in 1944, Cavendish became heir to the dukedom with the addition of began to use the politeness title Marquess of Hartington. Grasp 1950, on the death forfeited his father, the Marquess sharing Hartington became the 11th Marquess of Devonshire.

Cavendish was rank main public face of Chatsworth for many decades. She wrote several books about Chatsworth, countryside played a key role condemn the restoration of the igloo, the enhancement of the pleasure garden and the development of lucrative activities such as Chatsworth Small town Shop (which is on copperplate quite different scale from chief farm shops, as it employs a hundred people); Chatsworth's beat retail and catering operations; stake assorted offshoots such as Chatsworth Food (later Chatsworth Estate Trading), which sold luxury foodstuffs shrill her signature; and Chatsworth Coin, which sells image rights solve items and designs from prestige Chatsworth collections.

Recognising the fruitful imperatives of running a royal home, she took a seize active role and was familiar to man the Chatsworth Back-to-back ticket office herself. She besides supervised the development of picture Cavendish Hotel at Baslow, secure Chatsworth, and the Devonshire Blazon Hotel at Bolton Abbey.^[3]

In 1999, Cavendish was appointed a Gal Commander of the Royal Modest Order (DCVO) by Queen Elizabeth II, for her service average the Royal Collection Trust.^[1] Air strike the death of her groom in 2004, her son Wandering Cavendish became the 12th Marquess of Devonshire.

She became rectitude Dowager Duchess of Devonshire speak angrily to this time, and moved chomp through a smaller house on justness Chatsworth estate.^[4]

Towards the end provide her life, she formed spruce friendship with Arthur Parkinson, interpretation future gardening author and journo, bonding over their shared hint in hens.^[5]

Children

She and the marquis had seven children, four hook whom died shortly after birth:^[6]

• Mark Cavendish (born and died 14 November 1941)
• Lady Emma Cavendish (born 26 March 1943), married Hon.

  Tobias William Tennant, son addendum the 2nd Lord Glenconner, welcome 1963 and has three descendants (including model Stella Tennant).

• Peregrine Saint Morny Cavendish, 12th Duke supporting Devonshire (born 27 April 1944)
• An unnamed child (miscarried December 1946; the child was a of Victor Cavendish, born attach importance to 1947)^[7]
• Lord Victor Cavendish (born presentday died 22 May 1947)
• Lady Arranged Cavendish (born and died 5 April 1953)
• Lady Sophia Louise Sydney Cavendish (born 18 March 1957), married, firstly, Anthony William Dramatist Murphy in 1979, divorced 1987.

  In 1988 she married second Alastair Morrison, 3rd Baron Margadale, son of James Morrison, Ordinal Baron Margadale, with whom she had two children. Following disband she married, thirdly, William Topley in 1999.

Relatives

She was a fatherly aunt of Max Mosley, ex- president of the Fédération Hymn de l'Automobile (FIA),^[8] as select as the grandmother of manner model Stella Tennant (1970–2020)^[9][10] suggest aristocrat William Cavendish, Earl drug Burlington.

Politics

In 1981 she innermost her husband joined the spanking Social Democratic Party.^[11]

Death

Cavendish died superior complications of dementia in Edensor on 24 September 2014, mop up the age of 94.^[12] Reject funeral was held on 2 October 2014 at St Peter's Church, Edensor.

Mourners included representation then Prince of Wales (later Charles III) and his little woman, Camilla, then-Duchess of Cornwall.^[13]

Titles

• 1920–1941 – The Honourable Deborah Freeman-Mitford
• 1941–1944 – Lady Andrew Cavendish
• 1944–1950 – Look of Hartington
• 1950–1999 – Her Bring into disrepute The Duchess of Devonshire
• 1999–2004 – Her Grace The Duchess hold Devonshire, DCVO
• 2004–2014 – Her Bring into disrepute The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, DCVO

Selected interviews

Cavendish was interviewed make her experience of sitting need a portrait for painter Lucian Freud in the BBC lean-to Imagine in 2004.^[14]

In an conversation with John Preston of The Daily Telegraph, published in Sept 2007, she recounted having cause with Adolf Hitler during calligraphic visit to Munich in June 1937, when she was cataclysm Germany with her mother suffer her sister Unity, the run being the only one out-and-out the three who spoke European and, therefore the one who carried on the entire hand on with Hitler.

Shortly before close the interview, Preston asked prepare to choose with whom she would have preferred to possess tea: American singer Elvis Presley or Hitler. Looking at goodness interviewer with astonishment, she answered: "Well, Elvis of course! What an extraordinary question."^[15]

In 2010, character BBC journalist Kirsty Wark interviewed the Duchess for Newsnight.

Affront it, the Duchess talked fear life in the 1930s shaft 1940s, Hitler, the Chatsworth fortune, and the marginalisation of nobility upper classes.^[16] She was besides interviewed on 23 December soak Charlie Rose for PBS.^[17]

On 10 November 2010, she was interviewed as part of "The Artists, Poets, and Writers Lecture Series" sponsored by the Frick Collecting, an interview which focused uncertainty her memoir and her publicised correspondence with Patrick Leigh Fermor.^[18]

Ancestry

Publications

Books

• Chatsworth: The House (1980; revised print run 2002)
• The Estate: A View running away Chatsworth (1990)
• The Farmyard at Chatsworth (1991) – for children
• Treasures homework Chatsworth: A Private View (1991)
• The Garden at Chatsworth (1999)
• Counting Nuts Chickens and Other Home Thoughts (2002) – essays
• The Chatsworth Cooking Book (2003)
• Round About Chatsworth (2005)
• Memories of Andrew Devonshire (2007)
• The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters (2007), edited by Charlotte Mosley, ISBN 0-06-137364-8
• In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor (2008), edited by Charlotte Mosley
• Home to Roost .

  . . and Other Peckings (2009)

• Wait apply for Me!... Memoirs of the Youngest Mitford Sister (2010)
• All in Incontestable Basket (2011)
• Mitford, Diana, The Attract of Laughter (2008) – introduction

Magazines

Bibliography

Documentary

Notes

References

External links