Valentine George Lawford (February 27, 1911 – June 18, 1991) was a British diplomat and long-term partner of German-American fashion photographer

Horst P. Horst Horst P. Horst (born Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann; August 14, 1906 – November 18, 1999) was a German-American fashion photographer. Early life The younger of the sons, Horst was born in Weissenfels an der Saale, Germany, to Klara (Schönbrodt ...

. He adopted the name Nicholas in Paris in the late 1930s (apparently because Valentine was a girl's name in French)

Early life

Valentine Lawford attended

Repton School Repton School is a 13–18 co-educational, private, boarding and day school in the public school tradition, in Repton, Derbyshire, England. Sir John Port of Etwall, on his death in 1557, left funds to create a grammar school which was th ...

and

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Corpus Christi College (full name: "The College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary", often shortened to "Corpus") is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. From the late 14th c ...

where he read modern and medieval languages. He undertook further linguistic studies at the Sorbonne, Strasbourg and in Vienna.

Career

Having passed the Diplomatic Service exam, he joined the Foreign Office in London 1934. He served as Third Secretary at the Paris Embassy from 1937 to 1939. From 1939 to 1946 he was the private secretary of

Lord Halifax Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (16 April 1881 – 23 December 1959), known as the Lord Irwin from 1925 until 1934 and the Viscount Halifax from 1934 until 1944, was a British Conservative politician of the 1930s. He h ...

Anthony Eden Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1955 until his resignation in 1957. Achi ...

and

Ernest Bevin Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader and Labour Party politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1940 and ...

, all three of them

Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs The secretary of state for foreign, commonwealth and development affairs, also known as the foreign secretary, is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, Government of the United Kingdo ...

. 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 ...

he acted as official interpreter at various conferences and war councils, and was the regular interpreter of

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

. As part of Britain's delegation, he took part at the

Yalta Conference The Yalta Conference (), held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three sta ...

Moscow Conference (1945) The Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers, also known as the Interim Meeting of Foreign Ministers, was held in Moscow between the foreign ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union from December 16 to 26, 1945. They ...

and Quebec Conference (1943). From 1946 to 1949 he was the alternate British delegate to the

United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

. From 1949 to 1950 he was

Chargé d'affaires A (), plural ''chargés d'affaires'', often shortened to ''chargé'' (French) and sometimes in colloquial English to ''charge-D'', is a diplomat who serves as an embassy's chief of mission in the absence of the ambassador. The term is Frenc ...

at the British Embassy in

Tehran Tehran (; , ''Tehrân'') is the capital and largest city of Iran. It is the capital of Tehran province, and the administrative center for Tehran County and its Central District (Tehran County), Central District. With a population of around 9. ...

, Iran. In the 1960s and 1970s Lawford wrote the articles on the lifestyle of international high society illustrated by Horst for ''

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** '' Vogue Adria'', a fashion magazine for former Yugoslav countries ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ' ...

''. In 1968 ''Vogue's Book of Houses, Gardens, People'' collected most of those articles, Lawford's contribution defined as "lyrical essays". In 2016 ''Around That Time: Horst at Home in Vogue'', featured much of the material of the original book. Alone he wrote ''Bound for Diplomacy'', his autobiography published in 1963, and ''Horst, His Work & His World'' in 1984. He also painted watercolours which were widely exhibited.

Personal life

In Paris, in the 1930s, Lawford moved in a circle that included:

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and ...

Duff Cooper Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, (22 February 1890 – 1 January 1954), known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian and writer. First elected to Parl ...

, Sir Charles Mendl and

Elsie de Wolfe Elsie de Wolfe, Lady Mendl ( Ella Anderson de Wolfe; December 20, c. 1859 – July 12, 1950) was an American actress who became a prominent interior designer and author. Born in New York City, de Wolfe was acutely sensitive to her surroundings ...

Billy Baldwin

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor and filmmaker best known for being the first actor to play the masked Vigilante Zorro and other swashbuckler film, swashbu ...

, the Rothschilds, the de Castellanes, the Windsors, and

Nancy Cunard Nancy Clara Cunard (10 March 1896 – 17 March 1965) was a British writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class, and devoted much of her life to fighting racism and fascism. She became a muse to some of the ...

. Valentine Lawford met Horst in New York in 1946 (they believed their paths may have crossed fleetingly in Paris in 1938), and they remained together until Lawford's death in 1991. They raised an Austrian national, Hans Mayr, as their adopted son. Horst subsequently adopted Richard J. Tardiff (who adopted the surname Horst). At the time of his death, Lawford was living in

Oyster Bay Cove, New York Oyster Bay Cove is a village located within the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, on the North Shore of Long island, in New York, United States. It is considered part of the Greater Oyster Bay area, which is anchored by Oyster Bay. The popu ...

References

External links

The Papers of Valentine Lawford
at

Churchill Archives Centre The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawford, Valentine 1911 births 1991 deaths Gay diplomats British gay men 20th-century British diplomats 20th-century British LGBTQ people