Nina Caroline Ogilvy-Grant, 12th Countess of Seafield (17 April 1906 – 30 September 1969) was a Scottish peeress.

Early life

Born in

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

, she was the only child of

James Ogilvy-Grant, 11th Earl of Seafield Captain James Ogilvy-Grant, 11th Earl of Seafield, 3rd Baron Strathspey JP DL (18 April 1876 – 12 November 1915) was a New Zealand soldier who succeeded to the Earldom of Seafield in the Peerage of Scotland. Early life Seafield was born ...

and the New Zealand heiress Mary Elizabeth Nina Townend. The family seat was Castle Grant, Morayshire. She rented out the castle to American financier and railroad executive

George Jay Gould George Jay Gould I (February 6, 1864 – May 16, 1923) was a financier and the son of Jay Gould. He was himself a railroad executive, leading the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (DRGW), Western Pacific Railroad (WP), and the Manhatta ...

in 1922. Her paternal grandparents were

Francis Ogilvy-Grant, 10th Earl of Seafield Francis William Ogilvy-Grant, 10th Earl of Seafield, 2nd Baron Strathspey (9 March 1847 – 3 December 1888), styled as Viscount Reidhaven from 1884 to 1888, was a New Zealand farmer, labourer, and ephemeral Scottish peer. Early life Francis Wil ...

and the former Ann Trevor Corry Evans. Her maternal grandparents were Dr. Joseph Henry Townend and Harriet ( Cox) Townend.

Peerage

Her father was killed in action on 12 November 1915 in France during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and Nina succeeded, '' suo jure'', to the earldom of Seafield in the

Peerage of Scotland The Peerage of Scotland ( gd, Moraireachd na h-Alba, sco, Peerage o Scotland) is one of the five divisions of peerages in the United Kingdom and for those peers created by the King of Scots before 1707. Following that year's Treaty of Union, ...

. Her uncle, Trevor Ogilvy-Grant, succeeded to the barony of Strathspey in the

Peerage of the United Kingdom The Peerage of the United Kingdom is one of the five Peerages in the United Kingdom. It comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Acts of Union 1800, Acts of Union in 1801, when it replaced the ...

Personal life

Lady Seafield was rumoured to be engaged to

Prince Nicholas of Romania Prince Nicholas of Romania ( ro, Principele Nicolae al României; 5 August 1903 – 9 June 1978), later known as Prince Nicholas of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was the fourth child and second son of Ferdinand I of Romania, King Ferdinand I of Ro ...

, the fourth child and second son of

King Ferdinand I of Romania Ferdinand (Ferdinand Viktor Albert Meinrad; 24 August 1865 – 20 July 1927), nicknamed ''Întregitorul'' ("the Unifier"), was King of Romania from 1914 until his death in 1927. Ferdinand was the second son of Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern and ...

and his wife Queen Marie, but a marriage never took place. On 2 January 1930, her engagement to Derek Herbert Studley-Herbert was announced. They married on 24 January 1930. Before their divorce in 1957, they were the parents of: * Ian Ogilvy-Grant, 13th Earl of Seafield (b. 1939), who married Mary Dawn Mackenzie Illingworth, daughter of Henry George Coats Illingworth (a son of Sir

Percy Illingworth Percy Holden Illingworth (19 March 1869 – 3 January 1915) was a British Liberal politician. He served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury under H. H. Asquith between 1912 and 1915. Background and education Illingworth was the third and ...

), in 1960. They divorced in 1971 and he married Leila Refaat, daughter of Mahmoud Refaat, in 1971. * Lady Pauline Anne Ogilvy-Grant (1944–2010), who married James Henry Harcourt Illingworth, son of Henry George Coats Illingworth, in 1964. They divorced in 1970 and she married

Sir William Gordon-Cumming, 6th Baronet ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as p ...

, son of Maj. Sir Alexander Gordon-Cumming, 5th Baronet, in 1972. They were divorced in 1976 and she married Hugh Richard Sykes in 1976. They too divorced and she married David John Nicholson in 1989.Mosley, Charles, editor. ''Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes.''

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington ( Lenape: ''Paxahakink /'' ''Pakehakink)'' is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina ...

Burke's Peerage Burke's Peerage Limited is a British genealogical publisher founded in 1826, when the Irish genealogist John Burke began releasing books devoted to the ancestry and heraldry of the peerage, baronetage, knightage and landed gentry of Great Br ...

(Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003, volume 3, page 3552. A month after her divorce, her engagement to Armar E. Archbold was announced. Archbold, heir to a

Standard Oil Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911. At its height, Standard Oil was the largest petroleum company in the world, and its success made its co-f ...

fortune, however, died before they were wed. Her former husband died of cancer on 26 March 1960. Lady Seafield died of cancer in a London hospital on 30 September 1969 and was succeeded by her son

Ian Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, derived from the Hebrew given name (Yohanan, ') and corresponding to the English name John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename ''Iain''. It is a popular name in Sc ...

in the earldom of Seafield.

Reputed wealth

The Countess of Seafield was reportedly the second richest woman in Britain after

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

. At the time of her death, she earned $250,000 a year and owned "300 square miles in the shires of Banff,

Moray Moray () gd, Moireibh or ') is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with a coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland. Between 1975 ...

and

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...

." She owned

Cullen House Cullen House is a large house, about south-west of the coastal town of Cullen in Moray, Scotland. It was the seat of the Ogilvies of Findlater, who went on to become the Earls of Findlater and Seafield, and it remained in their family unt ...

Scotland, which boasted forty bedrooms and seven miles of corridors, but spent most of her time in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

where she owned properties.

References

External links

Nina Caroline Studley-Herbert (née Ogilvy-Grant), Countess of Seafield (1906-1969), Wife of Derek Herbert Ogilvy-Grant-Studley-Herbert; daughter of 11th Earl of Seafield
at the

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Studley-Herbert, Nina Caroline 12th Countess of Seafield 1906 births 1969 deaths 20th-century Scottish people 20th-century Scottish women Daughters of Scottish earls Scottish countesses 12 Hereditary women peers Deaths from cancer in the United Kingdom