Lady Mary Clive
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Lady Mary Katherine Clive (''
née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...
'' Pakenham 23 August 1907 – 19 March 2010) was a British writer and historian, known for her memoirs of her family and her time as a
debutante A debutante, also spelled débutante ( ; from , ), or deb is a young woman of aristocratic or upper-class family background who has reached maturity and is presented to society at a formal "debut" ( , ; ) or possibly debutante ball. Origin ...
.


Life

Born into the
Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the State rel ...
Longford family, Lady Mary was the fourth child of
Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford Brigadier-General Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford, KP, MVO (19 October 1864 – 21 August 1915), known as Lord Silchester until 1887, was an Anglo-Irish hereditary peer and soldier. Biography Background and early life Born in Dublin, ...
. After the Earl was killed at the Battle of Gallipoli in
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
in 1915, Lady Mary's mother, the daughter of the 7th Earl of Jersey, was greatly affected by her husband's death, and her sorrow affected her relationship with her six children. Mary's childhood was split between North Aston Hall in
Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...
and summer and Easter at
Tullynally Castle Tullynally Castle, also known as Pakenham Hall, is a country house situated some 2 km from Castlepollard on the Coole village road in County Westmeath, Ireland. The Gothic-style building has over 120 rooms and has been home to the Paken ...
in County Westmeath, Ireland. Her siblings later achieved individual prominence, her elder brother
Edward Edward is an English male name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortunate; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-S ...
was a politician and artistic director of
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
's
Gate Theatre The Gate Theatre is a theatre on Cavendish Row in Dublin, Ireland. It was founded in 1928. History Beginnings The Gate Theatre was founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLiammóir with Daisy Bannard Cogley and Gearóid Ó Lochla ...
, while her other brother was
Lord Longford Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (5 December 1905 – 3 August 2001), known to his family as Frank Longford and styled Lord Pakenham from 1945 to 1961, was a British politician and social reformer. A member of the Labour Party, ...
, a politician and social reformer. She had three sisters,
Violet Violet may refer to: Common meanings * Violet (color), a spectral color with wavelengths shorter than blue * One of a list of plants known as violet, particularly: ** ''Viola'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants Places United States * Vi ...
, a biographer,
Pansy The garden pansy (''Viola'' × ''wittrockiana'') is a type of polychromatic large-flowered hybrid plant cultivated as a garden flower. It is derived by hybridization from several species in the section ''Melanium'' ("the pansies") of the ge ...
, a novelist, and Julia. She and her siblings had few friends outside of her immediate family, a fact that she attributed to the out-of-date clothes that they wore as children. Lady Mary said that perhaps her mother had not "noticed that children's fashions had changed and as we grew older, we became acutely aware of the eccentricity of our appearance...summer and winter alike, we had to wear brown, ribbed woolen stockings and brown boots, which were a nuisance all the year round...worse still was the shame of them, which ate into our very souls." Of her 1964 memoir ''The Day of Reckoning'', the ''Daily Telegraph'' said that she wrote "with the acuteness of observation and lack of sentimentality that characterised her own personality." ''The Guardian'' said that "Mary, like her brothers and sisters, ada fierce independence of spirit and a positive relish for being different." Her childhood Christmases were spent at her mother's ancestral home of Middleton Park in Oxfordshire, and she recalled these in her 1955 novel ''Christmas with the Savages''. Lady Mary married Meysey Clive, a soldier and
Herefordshire Herefordshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England, bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh ...
landowner, the son of
Percy Clive Percy Archer Clive, DL (13 March 1873 – 5 April 1918) was a British army officer and Liberal Unionist Party politician. Biography Percy Clive was the eldest son of Charles Meysey Bolton Clive of Whitfield, Herefordshire, by his marriage to ...
and older brother of
Lewis Clive Lewis Clive (8 September 1910 – August 1938) was a British rower who won a gold medal in the 1932 Summer Olympics. He volunteered to fight for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and was killed in action. Life Born in Herefordshire, Cl ...
. She moved to Whitfield, the Clive family home, in Herefordshire's Golden Valley. Lady Mary returned Whitfield to its original Georgian design after the war, removing the Victorian wings of the house. With her husband Mary began creating a book based on old letters and diaries from her husband's great-grandmother, Caroline Clive, which was published in 1949. In 1943, her husband, a colonel in the
Grenadier Guards The Grenadier Guards (GREN GDS) is the most senior infantry regiment of the British Army, being at the top of the Infantry Order of Precedence. It can trace its lineage back to 1656 when Lord Wentworth's Regiment was raised in Bruges to protect ...
, was killed in North Africa during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. They had two children, George, who predeceased her, and a daughter, Alice, a former
High Sheriff of Cornwall Sheriffs and high sheriffs of Cornwall: a chronological list: The right to choose high sheriffs each year is vested in the Duchy of Cornwall. The Privy Council of the United Kingdom, Privy Council, chaired by the sovereign, chooses the sheriff ...
, who is married to
Simon Lennox-Boyd, 2nd Viscount Boyd of Merton Simon Donald Rupert Neville Lennox-Boyd, 2nd Viscount Boyd of Merton (born 7 December 1939), is a British hereditary peer and former member of the House of Lords. Early life and education Lennox-Boyd was born in 1939, the eldest son of Alan Lenn ...
. Lady Mary raised her children in Rabbit Cottage, the head gardener's house on the estate, while the Canadian High Commission occupied the house. She lived in Herefordshire, near the Black Mountains, from the end of the war until her death. Lady Mary went blind shortly before her death and died in a nursing home at the age of 102. Lady Mary was a sister-in-law of the historian and biographer
Elizabeth Longford Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford, (''née'' Harman; 30 August 1906 – 23 October 2002), better known as Elizabeth Longford, was an English historian. She was a member of the Royal Society of Literature and was on the board of trustees ...
, with whom she would travel as they were researching books. Clive would assist her in recognising historic battlefields in Spain and Portugal when she was researching the life of the
Duke of Wellington Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they ar ...
.


Career

She was presented as a
debutante A debutante, also spelled débutante ( ; from , ), or deb is a young woman of aristocratic or upper-class family background who has reached maturity and is presented to society at a formal "debut" ( , ; ) or possibly debutante ball. Origin ...
in 1926, an experience that she described in her memoir ''Brought Up and Brought Out'' (1938), that focused on the darker side of life as a debutante. She described 1926 as a 'bumper dowdy year' for debutantes, and the men she was introduced to as 'practically deformed...Some were without chins. Some had no foreheads. Hardly any of them had backs to their heads.' She also advertised
Pond's Pond's is an English brand of beauty and health care products, currently owned by Unilever. History Pond's Cream was invented in the United States as a patent medicine by pharmacist Theron T. Pond (1800–1852) of Utica, New York, in 1846. M ...
cold cream Cold cream, also known as ''ceratum refrigerans'', is an emulsion of water and certain fats, usually including beeswax and various scent agents, designed to smooth skin and remove makeup. Cold cream is a water-in-oil emulsion (emulsion of small a ...
during her time as a debutante. The
1926 United Kingdom general strike The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government ...
occurred the same year, and she served tea to striking lorry drivers. Her intelligence was considered a handicap for a debutante, so Lady Mary had to 'palm herself off as a low-brow'. Lady Mary spent three seasons as a debutante and then resolved to get a job, lodging in Chelsea for almost five years. In 1931 she embarked on a trip around the world, beginning in Canada in a luxury hotel and ending on a sheep station in New Zealand. She later went on a secret solo bicycle trip across France and Switzerland. Lady Mary took a secretarial course, and worked for a writer who praised
free love Free love is a social movement that accepts all forms of love. The movement's initial goal was to separate the State (polity), state from sexual and romantic matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery. It stated that such issues we ...
; however she found work insufficiently rewarding and then resolved not to work again unless she was extremely well paid. As an art student she studied in London, Rome, and Munich, and on her return shared a studio in Chelsea where her younger sister Violet would pose nude for her. As a
gossip columnist A gossip columnist is someone who writes a gossip column in a newspaper or magazine, especially in a gossip magazine. Gossip columns are written in a light, informal style, and relate opinions about the personal lives or conduct of celebrities fr ...
she suffered from the "smallness of a smart person's visiting list" and relied on her younger sisters for material. The popularity of the memoir led to
Lord Beaverbrook William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964), was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics of the first half of the 20th century ...
signing Clive for the ''Londoner's Diary'' section of his ''
London Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free of charge in London, England. It is print ...
''. She nicknamed Beaverbrook the 'Goblin King', and he later appointed her a chief reporter. She said of the beginning of her journalistic career that she '...only started writing for the papers because it was a terrific novelty—and there was a substantial cheque.' She earned ten guineas a week for her two columns, on dresses and 'intelligent' gossip. Her fellow writers on the Londoner's Diary included Peter Fleming, the brother of
Ian Fleming Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer, best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his ...
and
John Betjeman Sir John Betjeman, (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architect ...
. In 1937 Lady Mary was a contributor to the short lived magazine '' Night and Day'', edited by
Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...
. Lady Mary wrote two historical biographies, of
John Donne John Donne ( ; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's, D ...
and King
Edward IV of England Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...
. Much earlier (between 1932 and 1937) she also wrote four novels, for which she used the pen-name "Hans Duffy".


Bibliography

;Memoir *''Brought Up and Brought Out'' (1938) *''Christmas with the Savages'' (1955) *''The Day of Reckoning'' (1964) ;History *
John Donne John Donne ( ; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's, D ...
– ''Jack and the Doctor'' (1966) *
Edward IV of England Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...
– ''This Sun of York'' (1973) ;Novels as Hans Duffy *''In England Now'' (1932) *''Seven by Seven'' (1933) *''Lucasta's Wedding'' (1936) *''Under the Sugar-Plum Tree'' (1937)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clive, Mary 1907 births 2010 deaths 20th-century Anglo-Irish people 21st-century Anglo-Irish people 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English women writers 20th-century English memoirists 20th-century English historians 20th-century British journalists Pakenham family People from Banbury Daughters of Irish earls English women centenarians London Evening Standard people Gossip columnists English women journalists English women novelists British women memoirists British women columnists British blind writers English blind people