Lady Cynthia Rosalie Postan ( Keppel; 25 June 1918 – 12 November 2017) was a British debutante, secretary for MI5, translator and editor, horticulturalist, and porcelain collector.

Early life

Cynthia Rosalie Keppel was born at Daws Hill, in the grounds of Wycombe Abbey, on 25 June 1918, the fourth child of Walter Keppel, Viscount Bury, later the 9th Earl of Albemarle, and Lady Judith Sydney Myee Wynn-Carington, daughter of

Charles Wynn-Carington, 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire Charles Robert Wynn-Carington, 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire, (16 May 1843 – 13 June 1928), known as the Lord Carrington from 1868 to 1895, and as the Earl Carrington from 1895 to 1912, was a British Liberal politician and aristocrat. He was Go ...

. Her mother died of tuberculosis when Cynthia was nine.Cynthia Postan.
''The Times'', 6 December 2017. Retrieved 8 December 2017. She lived part of her childhood at her grandfather's house in Norfolk and was educated at a boarding school in Littlehampton. She trained as a

shorthand typist Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...

at Mrs Hoster's in Brompton Road, London, and was presented to

Edward VIII Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20 January 19 ...

as a

debutante A debutante, also spelled débutante, ( ; from french: débutante , "female beginner") or deb is a young woman of aristocratic or upper-class family background who has reached maturity and, as a new adult, is presented to society at a formal " ...

in 1936. She was "finished" in Munich, Germany, in 1936.

Career

During the Second World War, Postan worked as a secretary for MI5 after she was introduced to its head, Sir Vernon Kell, through family connections. She was initially stationed at Wormwood Scrubs where operation XX was in progress. She later worked at

Blenheim Palace Blenheim Palace (pronounced ) is a country house in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough and the only non-royal, non- episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace. The palace, on ...

during which time

Anthony Blunt Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), styled Sir Anthony Blunt KCVO from 1956 to November 1979, was a leading British art historian and Soviet spy. Blunt was professor of art history at the University of London, dire ...

, later revealed to be a Soviet spy, took her to lunch. Transferred to London, Postan met her future husband, the University of Cambridge economic historian Michael Postan, who was head of the Russia section of the Ministry of Economic Warfare. They married in 1944 and had two sons together.

Horticulture

Postan became a noted horticulturalist associated with the Royal Horticultural Society and was a specialist in the

Rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; from Ancient Greek ''rhódon'' "rose" and ''déndron'' "tree") is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are nati ...

plant of which she edited a history. The '' Ceanothus Cynthia Postan'', a Californian

lilac ''Syringa'' is a genus of 12 currently recognized species of flowering plant, flowering woody plants in the olive family or Oleaceae called lilacs. These lilacs are native to woodland and scrub from southeastern Europe to eastern Asia, and wid ...

originally known as ''Ceanothus x regius'', now carries her name.

Collecting

She formed an important collection of

French porcelain French porcelain has a history spanning a period from the 17th century to the present. The French were heavily involved in the early European efforts to discover the secrets of making the hard-paste porcelain known from Chinese and Japanese export ...

which was sold in 2015.''The Lady Cynthia Postan Collection of French and Other 18th Century Porcelain''
Pimpernel Press, 2015
Archived here.
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Death

Lady Postan died on 12 November 2017.

Selected publications

Edited

*''The Rhododendron Story: 200 Years of Plant Hunting and Garden Cultivation''. Royal Horticultural Society, 1996.

Translations

* Duby, Georges. (1968) ''Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West''. London: Edward Arnold. * Bairoch, Paul. (1975) ''The Economic Development of the Third World since 1900''. London: Methuen. * Duby, Georges. (1977) ''The Chivalrous Society''. University of California Press.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Postan, Cynthia 1918 births 2017 deaths People from High Wycombe English translators English horticulturists English collectors Women collectors Daughters of British earls Wives of knights British debutantes Keppel family Book editors MI5 personnel 20th-century British scientists 20th-century English women 20th-century English people 21st-century English women 21st-century English people 20th-century British women scientists