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Sibyl Colefax
Sibyl Sophie Julia, Lady Colefax (''née'' Halsey; 1874 – 22 September 1950) was an English interior decorator and socialite in the first half of the twentieth century. Biography Colefax was born at Wimbledon, third but only surviving daughter (and fifth and last child) of William Stirling Halsey, of the Indian Civil Service, and Sophie Victoria, daughter of the businessman and politician James Wilson. Her mother's sister, Emily, married the eminent constitutionalist Walter Bagehot. She lived in Cawnpore, India, until the age of 20 when she went on the Grand Tour. In 1901, she married patent lawyer Sir Arthur Colefax, who was briefly the MP for Manchester South West in 1910. They set up home at Argyll House, King's Road, Chelsea and at Old Buckhurst in Sussex. Widely admired for her taste, after she had lost most of her fortune in the Wall Street crash she began to decorate professionally, using her formidable address book for contacts. She was able to purchase the decorat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of Westminster, London, England, in the City of Westminster. It is in Central London and part of the West End. It is between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane and one of the most expensive districts in the world. The area was originally part of the manor of Eia and remained largely rural until the early 18th century. It became well known for the annual May Fair that took place from 1686 to 1764 in what is now Shepherd Market. Over the years, the fair grew increasingly downmarket and unpleasant, and it became a public nuisance. The Grosvenor family (who became Dukes of Westminster) acquired the land through marriage and began to develop it under the direction of Thomas Barlow. The work included Hanover Square, Berkeley Square and Grosvenor Square, which were surrounded by high-quality houses, and St George's Hanover Square Church. By the end of the 18th century, most of Mayfair had been rebuilt with high-value housing for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Listener (magazine)
''The Listener'' was a weekly magazine established by the BBC in January 1929 which ceased publication in 1991. The entire digitised archive was made available for purchase online to libraries, educational and research institutions in 2011. It was first published on 16 January 1929, under the editorship of Richard S. Lambert, and was developed as a medium of record for the reproduction of broadcast talks. It also previewed major literary and musical broadcasts, reviewed new books, and printed a selected list of the more intellectual broadcasts for the coming week. Its published aim was to be "a medium for intelligent reception of broadcast programmes by way of amplification and explanation of those features which cannot now be dealt with in the editorial columns of the ''Radio Times''". The title reflected the fact that at the time the BBC broadcast via radio only. (The BBC version of ''The Listener'' was preceded by another magazine with the same title which was the ''Journ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Nicolson
Sir Harold George Nicolson (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was a British politician, writer, broadcaster and gardener. His wife was Vita Sackville-West. Early life and education Nicolson was born in Tehran, Persia, the youngest son of diplomat Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock. He spent his boyhood in various places throughout Europe and the Near East and followed his father's frequent postings, including in St. Petersburg, Russia, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Madrid, Sofia, Bulgaria, Sofia, and Tangier. He was educated at The Grange School in Folkestone, Kent, followed by Wellington College (Berkshire), Wellington College. He attended Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1909 with a British undergraduate degree classification, third class degree. Nicolson entered the Foreign Office that same year, after passing second in the competitive exams for the Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service, Diplomatic Service and Civil Service (United Kingdom), Civil Service. Diplomatic car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord North Street
Lord North Street in central London is a short street dating from 1722 of Georgian terraced housing running between Smith Square and Great Peter Street in Westminster, the political heartland of British government. As such the properties have always commanded high fees and featured in many dramatic storylines. Past residents include the English man of letters Maurice Baring (at North Cottage, No 6, North Street), socialite Sibyl Colefax, founder of the Colefax and Fowler fabrics and wallpaper company, and Harold Wilson, twice Prime Minister who in November 1974 alleged that renegade MI5 operatives had broken into his home. More recent residents include Jonathan Aitken and Theresa Gorman. Origin of name The street was originally North Street (leading north from Smith Square). However, in 1936 Brendan Bracken, a resident and close confidant of Winston Churchill, had it renamed Lord North Street after Frederick North, Lord North, the Prime Minister A prime minister o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colefax Group
Colefax Group plc is a designer and distributor of furnishing fabrics and wallpaper, based in London, United Kingdom. History The business was founded in the 1930s by Sibyl, Lady Colefax (1874–1950). In 1938, she was joined in the business by John Fowler, and the business became known as Colefax & Fowler. In 1944, the business, managed by Fowler, took a lease on 39 Brook Street, Mayfair Mayfair is an area of Westminster, London, England, in the City of Westminster. It is in Central London and part of the West End. It is between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane and one of the most expensive districts ... where it remained until December 2016. Also in 1944, Colefax sold the business to Nancy Tree ( Nancy Lancaster as she became in 1948) for a sum in the order of £10,000. The group now has offices in the United States, France, Germany and Italy. It owns the brands Colefax and Fowler, Cowtan and Tout, Jane Churchill, Larsen and Manuel Canovas. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nancy Lancaster
Nancy Lancaster (10 September 1897 – 19 August 1994) was a 20th-century tastemaker and the owner of Colefax & Fowler, an influential British decorating firm that codified what is known as the English country house look. Biography She was born Nancy Keene Perkins as the elder daughter of Thomas Moncure Perkins, a Virginia cotton broker, and his wife Elizabeth Langhorne, a daughter of Chiswell Langhorne. Her birthplace was Mirador, the estate farm of her maternal grandfather, in Greenwood, near Charlottesville, Virginia. She was brought up in Richmond, Virginia and New York City. Nancy Lancaster had four maternal aunts, of whom the most notable were Nancy, Lady Astor, a British politician, and Irene Gibson, wife of artist Charles Dana Gibson, who popularized the Gibson Girl. Her cousin Joyce Grenfell was a celebrated British monologuist and actress. Nancy was graduated from Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Virginia in 1915, which was founded by her distant cousin, Charl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brook Street
Brook Street is an axial street in the exclusive central London district of Mayfair. Most of it is leasehold estate, leasehold, paying ground rent to and seeking lease renewals from the reversioner, that since before 1800, has been the Grosvenor Estate. Named after the River Tyburn, Tyburn that it crossed,Survey of London, Volume 40: The Grosvenor Estate in Mayfair, Part 2 (The Buildings), 1980, ed. F. H. W. Sheppard, p. 210-221 it was developed in the first half of the 18th century and runs from Hanover Square, London, Hanover Square to Grosvenor Square. The western continuation (to Park Lane (road), Park Lane) is called Upper Brook Street; its west end faces Brook Street Gate of Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park. Both sections consisted of neo-classical terraced housing, terraced houses, mostly built to individual designs. Some of them were very ornate, finely stuccoed and tall-ceilinged, designed by well known architects for wealthy tenants, especially near Grosvenor Square, other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Letters Of Note
Letters Live is a staged reading show of literary correspondence. It was created and developed in 2013 by independent publishing house Canongate Books in partnership with production company SunnyMarch. During the shows, actors read interesting, funny, or dramatic letters to the audience. ''Letters Live'' events have taken place in a wide range of venues and locations since its inception. While these events have primarily taken place in the United Kingdom, it has also been performed in other countries, including the United States. Beginnings ''Letters Live'' initially started as a one-off literacy charity event to promote Canongate Books epistolary texts ''Letters of Note'' by Shaun Usher and ''To the Letter'' by Simon Garfield in December 2013. Usher had been compiling letters in an online blog, searching for interesting, funny, or dramatic letters in libraries, museums, and archives. Jamie Byng of Canongate Books contacted celebrities he knew to get them involved in the even ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Virginia Woolf was born in South Kensington, London, into an affluent and intellectual family as the seventh child of Julia Prinsep Jackson and Leslie Stephen. She grew up in a blended household of eight children, including her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell. Educated at home in English classics and Victorian literature, Woolf later attended King’s College London, where she studied classics and history and encountered early advocates for women’s rights and education. After the death of her father in 1904, Woolf and her family moved to the bohemian Bloomsbury district, where she became a founding member of the influential Bloomsbury Group. She married Leonard Woolf in 1912, and together they established the Hogarth Press in 1917 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rab Butler
Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), also known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician; he was effectively deputy prime minister to Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan, although he only held the official title for a brief period in 1962–63. He was one of his party's leaders in promoting the post-war consensus through which the major parties largely agreed on the main points of domestic policy until the 1970s; it is sometimes known as "Butskellism" from a fusion of his name with that of his Labour counterpart, Hugh Gaitskell. Born into a family of academics and Indian administrators, Butler had a distinguished academic career before he entered Parliament in 1929 United Kingdom general election, 1929. As a junior minister, he helped to pass the Government of India Act 1935. He strongly supported the appeasement of Nazi Germ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dorchester
The Dorchester is a five-star hotel located on Park Lane and Deanery Street in London, to the east of Hyde Park. It is one of the world's most prestigious hotels. The Dorchester opened on 18 April 1931, and it still retains its 1930s furnishings and ambiance despite being modernised. Throughout its history, the hotel has been closely associated with the rich and famous. During the 1930s, it became known as a haunt of numerous writers and artists such as poet Cecil Day-Lewis, novelist Somerset Maugham, and the painter Sir Alfred Munnings. It has held prestigious literary gatherings, such as the "Foyles Literary Luncheons", an event the hotel still hosts today. During the Second World War, the strength of its construction gave the hotel the reputation of being one of London's safest buildings, and notable members of political parties and the military chose it as their London residence. Queen Elizabeth II attended the Dorchester when she was a princess on the day prior to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
