Ethel Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll (''
née'' Whigham, formerly Sweeny; 1 December 1912 – 25 July 1993) was a Scottish heiress, socialite, and aristocrat who was most famous for her 1951 marriage and much-publicised 1963
divorce
Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...
from her second husband,
Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll
Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th and 4th Duke of Argyll (18 June 1903 – 7 April 1973), was a Scottish peer and the Chief of Clan Campbell ( gd, MacCailein Mòr). He is chiefly remembered for his unhappy marriage to, and scandalous 1963 divorce fro ...
.
Birth and youth
Ethel Margaret Whigham was the only child of Helen Mann Hannay and George Hay Whigham. Her father, the son of Scottish lawyer and cricketer
David Dundas Whigham, was chairman of the
Celanese Corporation of Britain and North America. George Hay Whigham was a self-made millionaire: although his family was well-connected, they were not wealthy. Margaret spent the first fourteen years of her life in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, where she was educated privately at the
Hewitt School
The Hewitt School is an all-girls independent K-12 school in New York City, New York. The school serves girls in three divisions: Lower School (K-4), Middle School (5-8), and Upper School (9-12).
History
Caroline D. Hewitt founded the Hewitt Sch ...
. Her beauty was much spoken of, and she had youthful romances with
Prince Aly Khan
Prince Ali Salman Aga Khan (13 June 1911 – 12 May 1960), known as Aly Khan, was a Pakistani diplomat of Iranian and Italian descent. He was the son of the Aga Khan III, and the father of Aga Khan IV.
A socialite, racehorse owner and jockey, ...
, millionaire aviator
Glen Kidston and publishing heir
Max Aitken, later the second Lord Beaverbrook.
In 1928 the future actor
David Niven
James David Graham Niven (; 1 March 1910 – 29 July 1983) was a British actor, soldier, memoirist, and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Major Pollock in '' Separate Tables'' (1958). Niven's other roles ...
, then 18, had sex with 15-year-old Margaret during a holiday at
Bembridge
Bembridge is a village and civil parish located on the easternmost point of the Isle of Wight. It had a population of 3,848 according to the 2001 census of the United Kingdom, leading to the implausible claim by some residents that Bembridge ...
on the
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...
. To the fury of her father, she became pregnant as a result. She was taken into a
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
nursing home for a secret
abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pre ...
. "All hell broke loose," remembered her family cook, Elizabeth Duckworth. Margaret did not mention the episode in her 1975 memoirs, but she continued to adore Niven until the day he died. She was among the VIP guests at his London memorial service.
![Margaret Whigham](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Margaret_Whigham.jpg)
In 1930 Margaret was
presented at Court in London and was known as the
debutante of that year. Shortly afterwards, she announced her engagement to
Charles Guy Fulke Greville, 7th Earl of Warwick
Charles Guy Fulke Greville, 7th Earl of Warwick, 7th Earl Brooke (4 March 1911 – 20 January 1984), was a British peer and the last Earl of Warwick to live at the family seat Warwick Castle before its sale in 1978. He became the first British a ...
.
[ However, the wedding did not take place because she preferred Charles Francis Sweeny (1910-1993), an American businessman and amateur golfer from a wealthy ]Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
family.[ Her numerous early romances included an affair with ]Prince George, Duke of Kent
Prince George, Duke of Kent, (George Edward Alexander Edmund; 20 December 1902 – 25 August 1942) was a member of the British royal family, the fourth son of King George V and Queen Mary. He was a younger brother of kings Edward VIII and Geo ...
.
First marriage
On 21 February 1933, following her conversion to Roman Catholicism, Margaret married Sweeny at the Brompton Oratory
Brompton Oratory is a large neo-classical Roman Catholic church in the Knightsbridge area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London. Its full name is the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, or as named in its Grade II* archite ...
, London. Such had been the publicity surrounding her Norman Hartnell
Sir Norman Bishop Hartnell, KCVO (12 June 1901 – 8 June 1979) was a leading British fashion designer, best known for his work for the ladies of the royal family. Hartnell gained the Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth in 1940, and ...
wedding dress that the traffic in Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End.
Toponymy
Knightsbridge is an ancien ...
was blocked for three hours. For the rest of her life, Margaret was associated with glamour and elegance, being a firm client of Hartnell, Victor Stiebel
Victor Frank Stiebel (14 March 1907—6 February 1976) was a South African-born British couturier. A founder member of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, he was among the top ten designers in Britain during the war and post-war ...
, and Angele Delanghe in London before and after the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
. She was one of a series of society beauties photographed as classical figures by Madame Yevonde.
She had three children with Sweeny: a daughter, who was stillborn
Stillbirth is typically defined as fetal death at or after 20 or 28 weeks of pregnancy, depending on the source. It results in a baby born without signs of life. A stillbirth can result in the feeling of guilt or grief in the mother. The ter ...
at eight months in late 1933; another daughter, Frances Helen (born 1937, who married Charles Manners, 10th Duke of Rutland), and a son, Brian Charles (1940–2021). Before these pregnancies, she suffered eight miscarriages.
In 1943, Margaret had a near-fatal fall down a lift
Lift or LIFT may refer to:
Physical devices
* Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods
** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop
** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobil ...
shaft. "I fell forty feet to the bottom of the lift shaft", she later recalled. "The only thing that saved me was the lift cable, which broke my fall. I must have clutched at it, for it was later found that all my fingernails were torn off. I apparently fell onto my knees and cracked the back of my head against the wall".
Intermarital relationships
The Sweenys divorced in 1947.[ After the end of her first marriage, Margaret was briefly engaged to a ]Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
-born banker, Joseph Thomas of Lehman Brothers
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, a ...
, but he fell in love with another woman and the engagement was broken. She also had a serious romantic relationship with Theodore Rousseau, curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, who was, she recalled, "highly intelligent, witty and self-confident to the point of arrogance". That romance also ended without the couple formalising their liaison, since the mother of two "feared that Ted was not 'stepfather material'". Still, she observed in her memoirs, " continued to see each other constantly."
Second marriage
On 22 March 1951, Margaret became the third wife of Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll
Ian Douglas Campbell, 11th and 4th Duke of Argyll (18 June 1903 – 7 April 1973), was a Scottish peer and the Chief of Clan Campbell ( gd, MacCailein Mòr). He is chiefly remembered for his unhappy marriage to, and scandalous 1963 divorce from, ...
. She wrote later in life:
In fact, Margaret was not mentioned in Porter's original version of "You're the Top". The lyrics were later anglicised for the British version of the song by P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, ( ; 15 October 188114 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeve ...
, who changed two lines from "You're an O'Neill drama / You're Whistler's mama!" to "You're Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
/ You're Mrs Sweeny".Warren Hoge
Warren McClamroch Hoge (born April 13, 1941) is an American journalist, much of whose long career has been at ''The New York Times''.
Life and career
Hoge is the son of James F. Hoge, Sr. (1901–72) and Virginia McClamroch Hoge. His elder br ...
"London Journal; A Sex Scandal of the 60's, Doubly Scandalous Now"
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', 16 August 2000
According to Lyndsy Spence, a biographer of the Duchess, the Duke of Argyll forged
Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compressive forces. The blows are delivered with a hammer (often a power hammer) or a die. Forging is often classified according to the temperature at which it ...
a deed of sale (sometimes called a deed of gift, thus offering various items from Inveraray Castle as security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...
) before their marriage in exchange for her money used to restore his family home at Inveraray, and wiretapped her car. The Duchess herself forged letters to sow doubt about the fatherhood of Ian Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne, and Lord Colin Campbell, her husband's sons from his second marriage to Louise Timpson; and she even tried to acquire a newborn baby she could pass off as her husband's rightful heir.
Divorce from the Duke of Argyll
Within a few years, the marriage was falling apart. The Duke was known to be addicted to alcohol, gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...
and prescription drugs
A prescription drug (also prescription medication or prescription medicine) is a pharmaceutical drug that legally requires a medical prescription to be dispensed. In contrast, over-the-counter drugs can be obtained without a prescription. The re ...
, and was described as physically violent and emotionally abusive
Psychological abuse, often called emotional abuse, is a form of abuse characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another person to a behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumat ...
by his first two wives, whose money he tried to use to maintain Inveraray Castle. He suspected the Duchess of infidelity and, while she was in New York, engaged a locksmith to break open a cupboard at their Mayfair home, 48 Upper Grosvenor Street
Upper Grosvenor Street is a one-way Georgian street in Mayfair, London, United Kingdom. It runs from the north side of the Grosvenor House Hotel (fronting Park Lane) to the south side of the London Chancery Building (fronting Grosvenor Squ ...
. The evidence discovered resulted in the 1963 divorce case, in which the Duke accused his wife of infidelity
Infidelity (synonyms include cheating, straying, adultery, being unfaithful, two-timing, or having an affair) is a violation of a couple's emotional and/or sexual exclusivity that commonly results in feelings of anger, sexual jealousy, and ri ...
and included a set of Polaroid
Polaroid may refer to:
* Polaroid Corporation, an American company known for its instant film and cameras
* Polaroid camera, a brand of instant camera formerly produced by Polaroid Corporation
* Polaroid film, instant film, and photographs
* Polar ...
photographs of the Duchess naked, save for her signature three-strand pearl necklace, in the company of another man. There were also photographs of the Duchess fellating a naked man whose face was not shown. It was speculated that this "headless man" was the Minister of Defence
A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...
Duncan Sandys
Edwin Duncan Sandys, Baron Duncan-Sandys (; 24 January 1908 – 26 November 1987), was a British politician and minister in successive Conservative governments in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a son-in-law of Winston Churchill and played a key r ...
(later Lord Duncan-Sandys, son-in-law of Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
), who offered to resign from the cabinet.
The Duchess counter-petitioned the divorce, accusing the Duke of committing adultery with her stepmother, Jane Corby Wigham. She dropped her case the day of the hearing due to lack of a witness, and later had to pay a judgment of £25,000 to her stepmother, who sued her for libel, slander
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
, and conspiracy to suborn perjury
Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...
.
A list of as many as 88 men with whom the Duke believed his wife had consorted was produced. The list is said to include two government ministers and three members of the British royal family. The judge commented that the Duchess had indulged in "disgusting sexual activities". Lord Denning
Alfred Thompson "Tom" Denning, Baron Denning (23 January 1899 – 5 March 1999) was an English lawyer and judge. He was called to the bar of England and Wales in 1923 and became a King's Counsel in 1938. Denning became a judge in 1944 wh ...
, who was called upon by the government to track down the "headless man", compared the handwriting of the five leading "suspects", (Duncan Sandys; Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr., (December 9, 1909 – May 7, 2000) was an American actor, producer and decorated naval officer of World War II. He is best known for starring in such films as ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1937), '' Gunga Din'' (1939) ...
; John Cohane, an American businessman; Peter Combe, a former press officer at the Savoy Hotel
The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August ...
; and Sigismund von Braun, brother of the German scientist Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( , ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, as well as the leading figure in the develop ...
) with the captions written on the photographs. It is claimed that this analysis proved that the man in question was Fairbanks, then long married to his second wife, but this was not made public.
Granting the divorce, Lord Wheatley, the presiding judge, said the evidence established that the Duchess "was a completely promiscuous
Promiscuity is the practice of engaging in sexual activity frequently with different partners or being indiscriminate in the choice of sexual partners. The term can carry a moral judgment. A common example of behavior viewed as promiscuous by ma ...
woman whose sexual appetite could only be satisfied with a number of men".[ He continued: "Her attitude to the sanctity of marriage was what moderns would call 'enlightened' but which in plain language was wholly immoral." Many of the men the Duchess was alleged to have slept with were homosexual; she was unwilling to divulge this as sexual acts between men were illegal in the United Kingdom at the time.]
The Duchess never revealed the identity of the "headless man", and Fairbanks always denied the allegation. Long afterwards, it was claimed that there were actually two "headless men" in the photographs, Fairbanks and Sandys, the latter identified on the basis of the Duchess's statement that "the only Polaroid camera in the country at that time had been lent to the Ministry of Defence". In 2013, the daughter-in-law of the 11th Duke, Lady Colin Campbell
Georgia Arianna, Lady Colin Campbell (''née'' Ziadie, born 17 August 1949), also known as Lady C, is a British Jamaican author, socialite, and television personality who has published seven books about the British royal family. They include ...
, stated that the "headless man" was an American executive named Bill Lyons.
Final years
The Duchess wrote a memoir, ''Forget Not'' (published by W. H. Allen Ltd in 1975) which was reviewed negatively for its name-dropping
Name-dropping (or name-checking or a shout-out) is the practice of naming or alluding to important people and institutions within a conversation,. story, song, online identity, or other communication. The term often connotes an attempt to impress ...
and air of entitlement. She also lent her name as author to a guide to entertaining. With her fortune diminished, she opened her London house at 48 Upper Grosvenor Street, which had been decorated for her parents in 1935 by Syrie Maugham
Gwendoline Maud Syrie Maugham (''née'' Barnardo, formerly Wellcome; 10 July 1879 – 25 July 1955) was a leading British interior decorator of the 1920s and 1930s who popularized rooms decorated entirely in white.
Birth
Syrie Maugham was born ...
, for paid tours. Her extravagant lifestyle and ill-considered investments left her largely penniless by the time she died.
In 1978, Margaret's debts forced her to move from Upper Grosvenor Street and relocate with her maid to a suite at the Grosvenor House Hotel
]
JW Marriott Grosvenor House London, originally named the Grosvenor House Hotel, is a luxury hotel that opened in 1929 in the Mayfair area of London, England. The hotel is managed by JW Marriott Hotels, which is a brand of Marriott Internat ...
. In April 1988, on the evening after the Grand National
The Grand National is a National Hunt horse race held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England. First run in 1839, it is a handicap st ...
, she appeared on a Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
'' After Dark'' discussion about horse racing "so she said, to put the point of view of the horse", later walking out of the programme "because she was so very sleepy". In 1990, unable to pay the hotel bills, she was evicted and, with the support of friends and her first husband, moved into an apartment.
Margaret's children later placed her in a nursing home in Pimlico, London. The Duchess died in penury in 1993 after a bad fall in the nursing home. Her funeral, a requiem mass
A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead ( la, Missa pro defunctis) or Mass of the dead ( la, Missa defunctorum), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, ...
, was held at Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street
The Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, also known as Farm Street Church, is a Roman Catholic parish church run by the Society of Jesus in Mayfair, central London. Its main entrance is in Farm Street, though it can also be accessed ...
in Mayfair. She was buried alongside her first husband, Charles Sweeny, who had died only four months earlier, in Brookwood Cemetery
Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe. The cemetery is listed a Grade I site in the Regi ...
in Woking, Surrey.
Margaret had asked Charles Castle in 1974 to write her biography, but reneged. He then published ''The Duchess Who Dared – The Life of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll'' in 1994. It was reprinted in 1995 by Pan Books, and in 2021, to coincide with the TV series ''A Very British Scandal'', by Swift Press.
Personality
The Duchess once told ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'': "I don't think anybody has real style or class any more. Everyone's got old and fat." She described herself as "always vain". Another quote gives an insight into her personality: "Always a poodle, only a poodle! That, and three strands of pearls!" she said. "Together they are absolutely the essential things in life."
In popular culture
*''Powder Her Face
''Powder Her Face'', Op. 14 (1995), is a chamber opera in two acts by the British composer Thomas Adès, with an English libretto by Philip Hensher. The opera is 100 minutes long. It was commissioned by the Almeida Opera, a part of London's A ...
'', a chamber opera based on major events in the Duchess's life, received its premiere at the Cheltenham Music Festival in 1995. The English composer Thomas Adès
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès (born 1 March 1971) is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: '' The Tempest'' (2004), '' ...
wrote the music, and novelist Philip Hensher
Philip Michael Hensher FRSL (born 20 February 1965) is an English novelist, critic and journalist.
Biography
Son of Raymond J. and Miriam Hensher, his father a bank manager and composer and his mother a university librarian, Hensher was born in ...
contributed the libretto; the Festival, along with the Almeida Opera, commissioned the piece. The opera's Duchess character, an image of the real woman refracted through an astringent camp
Camp may refer to:
Outdoor accommodation and recreation
* Campsite or campground, a recreational outdoor sleeping and eating site
* a temporary settlement for nomads
* Camp, a term used in New England, Northern Ontario and New Brunswick to descri ...
sensibility, invites both sympathy and contempt for her by design.
* Her divorce from the Duke of Argyll was dramatised in the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
as the Duchess.