Dorothy Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington

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Dorothy Violet Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington (21 August 1885 – 11 July 1956), styled Lady Gerald Wellesley between 1914 and 1943, was an English socialite, author, poet and literary editor. She was born Dorothy Violet Ashton at Maidenhead.

She was the daughter of Robert Ashton of Croughton, Cheshire (himself a second cousin of the 1st Baron Ashton of Hyde) descended from wealthy cotton manufacturers, and his wife (Lucy) Cecilia Dunn-Gardner, later Countess of Scarbrough, and stepdaughter of the 10th Earl of Scarbrough. Dorothy married Lord Gerald Wellesley (later 7th Duke of Wellington), on 30 April 1914. After her marriage she used the name Dorothy Wellesley when she wrote.

She was the author of more than ten books, mostly of poetry, but including also Sir George Goldie, Founder of Nigeria (1934), and Far Have I Travelled (1952). She was editor for Hogarth Press of the Hogarth Living Poets series. She also edited The Annual in 1929.

According to W. B. Yeats, a man extremely reluctant to praise any poet other than himself, Wellesley was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. "Within two minutes of our first meeting at my house he said: ‘You must sacrifice everything and everyone to your poetry'"[1]. Sadly, in spite of her collected poems being a Poetry Society Recommendation, she fell out of fashion, probably because the bulk of her best work is essentially philosophical poetry, which has very little readership today.

She was one of the group of women reputed as lesbian lovers of Vita Sackville-West; they travelled together. She was also close to Hilda Matheson (1888-1940), another of Vita's circle, and shared a Sussex cottage, called "Penns-in-the-Rocks" with her from 1929. She was introduced to W. B. Yeats in 1935, and they developed an intense relationship over the years. Yeats would edit and revise her poems well as soliciting her comments on his works. Together they edited the second series of Broadsides in 1937, and Dorothy Wellesley and Hilda Matheson were among those present at WBY's deathbed in 1939.

She had two children:

  1. Arthur Valerian Wellesley, 8th Duke of Wellington, b. 2nd July 1915
  2. Lady Elizabeth Wellesley, b. 26th December 1918.

She separated from her husband before he succeeded to the Dukedom of Wellington, but they never divorced. She died at Withyham in Sussex. Her widower proposed to her half-sister Lady Serena James (widow of his former brother-in-law the Hon. Robert James), but she refused him.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Letters on Poetry from W. B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley (1940, Oxford University Press) edited by Kathleen Raine
  2. ^ Obituary of Lady Serena James, nee Lumley

[edit] Sources

  • Letters on Poetry from W. B. Yeats to Dorothy Wellesley (1940, Oxford University Press) edited by Kathleen Raine