Sybil Grant

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Lady Sybil Primrose (later Grant) (1879–1955) painted by Lord Frederick Leighton.

Lady Sybil Grant (1879–1955) (born Sybil Myra Caroline Primrose) was a British writer, designer and artist.^[1] She was the eldest child of the 5th Earl of Rosebery and his wife Hannah de Rothschild. Lady Sybil married, 28 March 1903, General Sir Charles John Cecil Grant, KCB, KCVO, DSO (1877–1950). On the death of her father in 1929, she inherited his estate, "The Durdans" at Epsom, which became her home. Grant later became an eccentric, spending most of her time in a caravan^[2] or up a tree, communicating to her butler through a megaphone. She died a widow in 1955, survived by her son, Charles Robert Archibald Grant, who had married Honourable Pamela Wellesley (born 14 May 1912), granddaughter of the 4th Duke of Wellington.

[edit] Early years

Her father, Lord Rosebery, in addition to being British Prime Minister in 1894 collected Napoleon memorabilia and wrote a biography of the Emperor.^[3] He also wrote a biography of Lady Sybil's ancestor William Pitt.^[4] Her mother the former Hannah de Rothschild was at one time reputed to be the richest woman in England. Grant spent her childhood taught by Governesses dividing her time between the family's London mansion Lansdowne House and their many country houses which included among others Dalmeny House and Mentmore Towers.

From the time she was a baby Lady Sybil was often left by her parents in the care of staff, supervised by her father's sister Lady Leconfield^[5] at the Leconfield's Petworth House. This was particularly evident in June 1880 when Lord Rosebery wished to visit Germany for three months to take a cure at a German spa (Rosebery was recovering from what is now thought to have been a nervous breakdown^[6]) shortly after Sybil's birth (Lord Rosebery had no great feeling for proximity to small babies^[7]). His wife dutifully accompanied him, but Rosebery reported that his wife savoured every detail of daily letters from London concerning Sybil.^[8] Despite the lack of attention, Lady Sybil remained close to her father; following her marriage at the Guards Chapel in 1903 her father wrote: "She was wonderfully cool, and held my hand all the way to the church".^[9]

[edit] Literary works

Le Printemps: one of Watteau's more Correggiesque pieces, formerly in the collection of Lady Sybil. It is the only photograph documenting the painting, which has since been destroyed.

Sybil Grant published works that include The Kisses That Never Were Given, A Three-Cornered Secret and Travesty. These works of fiction were all published in the London Magazine in 1912.^[10] In 1913 Mills and Boon published one of her major works, Founded on Fiction, a book of comic poems. Published in the same year was The Chequer-Board followed later by Samphire and The Land of Let's Pretend. In 1914, as one of the leading literary figures of the day, she was invited to contribute to Princess Mary's Gift Book, a book of illustrated stories assembled to raise money for the war effort.

Lady Sybil was a patriotic admirer of the achievements of Marshal Foch, writing in a eulogy of him in 1929 that "the first impression you received was of an infinite horizon–he seemed to look beyond the common limits of human sight. When in the course of conversation he looked in your direction you felt the same helpless sense of inferiority as when, upon a night in deep summer, you look up at the stars."^[11]

She inherited her father's extensive library at Durdans on his death in 1929. After a great sale at Sotheby's in 1933, she donated over 2,700 of the remaining books, pamphlets and manuscripts to the National Library of Scotland on her death in 1955. The donation included many memoirs and pamphlets on British and European history of the 18th and the 19th century, including biographies of Pitt and Napoleon; an uncensored first edition of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (Paris, 1857); maps, particularly of the area around Epsom; dictionaries of slang and cant; religious works, particularly relating to Cardinal Newman; and works on horseracing and field sports, including a complete run of the The Sporting Magazine from 1792 to 1870.^[12]

[edit] The arts and Bohemia

Some of Lady Sybil's designs were in ceramics,^[13] where she drew for inspiration on her love of animals, particularly the Suffolk Punch horses which she bred. Her love of animals was enormous and she succeeded in breeding a rare strain of dog, the Shetland Toys, which she saved from extinction.^[14] She was the first to breed the rare Pyrenean Mountain Dog in England, in 1909, although examples had been imported earlier - for example, one was owned by Queen Victoria in the 1850s.^[15]

In 1937, Grant befriended the Gypsies who regularly inhabited Epsom Downs during the Derby week, often dressing herself in "unusual and romantic clothes."^[16] She allowed them the use of her land, setting it aside annually for the Gypsies' use. This meant that the Gypsies had a legal place to camp and subsequently halted much of the hostility between the local people and the Gypsies.

With the Reverend Edward Dorling she was a leading member^[17] of the "Lest We Forget" charitable fund, and on the charity's behalf she organized a fete on the grounds of "The Durdans" each year; here her pottery was often sold and in great demand.^[18]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Aston, George (1932). The Biography of the Late Marshal Foch. New York: The Macmillan Company.
• McKinstry, Leo (2005). Rosebery, a statesman in turmoil. London: John Murray (publishers). ISBN 0-7195-6586-3. 

• Young, Kenneth (1974). Harry, Lord Rosebery. London: Hodder and Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-16273-2. 

• Gypsies at the Epsom Derby
• Ashtead Pottery for the Home
• The Fiction Magazines Index
• Shelties
• The National Register of Archives
• Edwardian Modernists

[edit] External links

• Edwardian Modernists Photograph of Sybil Grant with other great contemporary literary figures