Mitford family

File:Mitford family.jpg

The Mitford family in 1921

The Mitford family is a minor aristocratic English family whose main family line had seats at Mitford, Northumberland. Several heads of the family served as High Sheriff of Northumberland. A junior line, with seats at Newton Park, Northumberland, and Exbury House, Hampshire, descends via the historian William Mitford (1744–1827) and were twice elevated to the British peerage, in 1802 and 1902, under the title Baron Redesdale. The Mitford sisters were William Mitford's great-great-great-granddaughters.

The sisters, six daughters of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and Sydney Bowles, became celebrated, and at times scandalous, figures that were caricatured, according to The Times journalist Ben Macintyre, as "Diana the Fascist, Jessica the Communist, Unity the Hitler-lover; Nancy the Novelist; Deborah the Duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur".

Background

The family traces its origins in Northumberland back to the time of the Norman conquest. In the Middle Ages they had been Border Reivers based in Redesdale. The main family line had seats at Mitford Castle and Mitford Old Manor House prior to Mitford Hall in 1828.

The Mitford siblings

• Nancy Mitford (28 November 1904 – 30 June 1973)
• Pamela Mitford (25 November 1907 – 12 April 1994)
• Thomas David Mitford (2 January 1909 – 30 March 1945)
• Diana Mitford (17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003)
• Unity Mitford (8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948)
• Jessica Mitford (11 September 1917 – 22 July 1996)
• Deborah Mitford (31 March 1920 – 24 September 2014)

Mitford sisters

File:Mitford sisters.jpg

Jessica, Nancy, Diana, Unity and Pamela Mitford in 1935

The sisters achieved notoriety for their controversial but stylish lives as young people, then for their public political divisions between communism and fascism. Nancy and Jessica became well-known writers: Nancy the author of The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate and Jessica's 1963 The American Way of Death. Deborah managed one of the most successful stately homes in England, Chatsworth. Jessica and Deborah married nephews-by-marriage of prime ministers Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan, respectively. Deborah and Diana both married wealthy aristocrats. Unity and Diana were well-known during the 1930s for being close to Adolf Hitler. In the early 1980s, Deborah became politically active when she and her husband Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire joined the new Social Democratic Party.

The children of David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, known to his children as "Farve" and various other nicknames, their mother was Sydney Freeman-Mitford, Baroness Redesdale, known as "Muv", the daughter of Thomas Bowles. David and Sydney married in 1904. The family homes changed from Batsford House to Asthall Manor beside the River Windrush in Oxfordshire, and then Swinbrook Cottage nearby, with a house at Rutland Gate in London. They also lived in a cottage in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire which they used as a summer residence.

The sisters and their brother Thomas grew up in an aristocratic 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. There was also a disregard for 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" (pronounced 'bowdledidge'), and each had a different nickname for the others. Their parents were described as "nature's fascists". At least two of their daughters followed in their footsteps; one turned her back on her inherited privileges, ran away to become a communist, a result of the excitement of European politics in the 1930s. Jessica's memoir Hons and Rebels describes their upbringing, and Nancy obviously drew upon her family members for characters in her novels.

Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, their political views came into sharper relief. "Farve" remained a conservative, but "Muv" usually supported her fascist daughters, and they separated in the late 1940s. Nancy, a moderate socialist, worked in London during the Blitz. Pamela remained seemingly non-political, although reportedly a rabid anti-Semite. Tom, a fascist, refused to fight Germany but volunteered to fight against Imperial Japan. He was killed in action a short time after arriving in Asia. Diana, married to Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, was imprisoned in London for three years under Defence Regulation 18B. Unity, distraught over the war declaration against Germany, tried to commit suicide by shooting herself in the head. She suffered brain damage which eventually led to her early death. Jessica, a communist supporter, had moved to the US, but her husband Esmond Romilly volunteered for the RCAF and died when his bomber developed mechanical problems over the North Sea. In numerous letters Jessica stated that her daughter received a pension from the Canadian government from Esmond's death until she turned 18. The political rift between Jessica and Diana left them estranged until their deaths. The other sisters kept in frequent contact.

The sisters were prolific letter-writers, and a substantial body of correspondence still exists, principally letters between them.

Thumbnail biographies

1. Nancy Mitford (28 November 1904 – 30 June 1973). Married Peter Rodd and had a longstanding relationship with French politician and statesman Gaston Palewski. Lived in France much of her adult life. Writer of many novels, including her most popular (and somewhat autobiographical), The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate. Also a noted biographer of historical figures, including the Sun King.
2. Pamela Mitford (25 November 1907 – 12 April 1994). Known as "Woman." Married and divorced the millionaire physicist Derek Jackson. John Betjeman, who for a time was in love with her, referred to her as the "Rural Mitford". After her divorce, she spent the remainder of her life as the companion of Giuditta Tommasi (died 1993), an Italian horsewoman.
3. Thomas Mitford (2 January 1909 – 30 March 1945). Educated at Eton, lover of James Lees-Milne there. Regular lover of Tilly Losch during her marriage to Edward James. Died as a soldier in Burma. According to Jessica's letters, he supported British fascism and was stationed in Burma after refusing to fight in Europe.
4. Diana Mitford (17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003). Married aristocrat and writer Bryan Walter Guinness in the 1929 society wedding of the year. Left him in the society scandal of the year (1933) for British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley. Was interned in Holloway Prison during the Second World War. Never renounced her belief in fascism nor her affection for Adolf Hitler. Mother of Max Mosley.
5. Unity Valkyrie Mitford (8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948), "Bobo" or "Boud" to her siblings. Famous for her adulation of and friendship with Adolf Hitler. Shot herself in the head days after Britain declared war on Germany, but failed to kill herself and eventually died of pneumococcal meningitis at West Highland Cottage Hospital, Oban, after being transferred from Inch Kenneth.
6. Jessica Mitford (11 September 1917 – 22 July 1996), commonly known as "Decca". Eloped with Esmond Romilly to the Spanish Civil War. Spent most of her adult life in the United States. Two years after Esmond was killed during the Second World War she married Robert Treuhaft, whom she met as a fellow US government employee. Member of the American Communist Party until 1958. Wrote several volumes of memoirs and several volumes of polemical investigation, including the best-selling The American Way of Death (1963) about the funeral industry. Grandmother of James Forman, Jr. and Chaka Forman, sons of the African-American civil rights leader James Forman by her daughter Constancia Romilly.
7. Deborah Mitford (31 March 1920 – 24 September 2014). Married Andrew Cavendish who became the Duke of Devonshire, and with him turned his ancestral home, Chatsworth House, into one of Britain's most successful stately homes. She wrote a dozen books.

The Mitfords in popular culture

Nancy Mitford's 1949 novel, Love in a Cold Climate, which was based on the family, was serialised by Thames Television in 1980, and by the BBC in 2001.

The daughters were the subject of a 1981 musical, The Mitford Girls, by Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin, and of a song, "The Mitford Sisters", by Luke Haines.

A fictional family based on the Mitford sisters features prominently in author Jo Walton's 2007 novel Ha'penny; Viola Lark, one of the point-of-view characters, is one of the sisters, another is married to Himmler, and a third is a Communist spy.

The fictional "Combe sisters" in the BBC 2 series Bellamy's People, first broadcast in 2010, bear a striking resemblance to the Mitford sisters. Bellamy meets two of the surviving Combe sisters, said to have been notorious in the 1930s and '40s for their extreme political views, now living together in a strained relationship in the dramatically different political realities of 2010. One an avid fascist and the other a committed Communist, the sisters have hit upon the solution of dividing their stately home down the middle, each converting her side into a homage to her ideology.

Sharon Horgan, Samantha Spiro and Sophie Ellis Bextor played The Mitford Sisters in a song based sketch for the second season of the Sky Arts comedy series Psychobitches in the winter of 2014.

Ancestry

Ancestors of the Mitford siblings

8. Henry Reveley Mitford                       4. Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale                             9. Georgiana Jemima Ashburnham                       2. David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale                                   10. David Ogilvy, 10th Earl of Airlie                       5. Clementina Gertrude Helen Ogilvy                             11. Henrietta Blanche Stanley                       1. the Mitford siblings                                         12. Thomas Milner Gibson                       6. Thomas Gibson Bowles                             13. Susannah Bowles                       3. Sydney Bowles                                   14. Charles Evans-Gordon                       7. Jessica Evans-Gordon                             15. Catherine Rose

Bibliography

• The House of Mitford by Jonathan Guinness (Hutchinson, London 1984) ISBN 0 09 155560 4
• The Mitford Girls by Mary S. Lovell (Little, Brown and Company 2001)
• The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Mosley (Fourth Estate 2007)
• History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland (1835) Vol II pp 282–286 (ISBN 978-0-8063-0742-8) A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 2 at Google Books

External links

• The Official Nancy Mitford Website
• Genealogical pictures of the Mitford family
• Audio interview with Christopher Hitchens of Jessica Mitford (1988)
• The Mitford Society