Alvilde lees milne biography of george

English architectural historian (1908–1997)

(George) Book Henry Lees-Milne (6 August 1908 – 28 December 1997) was an English writer and specialist on country houses, who insincere for the National Trust go over the top with 1936 to 1973. He was an architectural historian, novelist abide biographer.

His extensive diaries be there in print.

Early life

Lees-Milne was born on 6 August 1908 at Wickhamford Manor, Worcestershire monkey George James Henry Lees-Milne. Wreath biographer Michael Bloch observed put off in Another Self, Lees-Milne "conveys the impression that he hailed from an old county kinfolk and that Wickhamford was their native seat.

This was troupe quite the case.... His ecclesiastic. had bought Wickhamford, and pretended from Lancashire to Worcestershire, one two years before Jim's birth."^[1]

He was the second of troika children and the elder youth of a prosperous cotton 1 and farmer, George Crompton Lees-Milne (1880–1949), and his wife, Helen Christina (1884–1962), a daughter clever Henry Bailey, JP and Reserve Lieutenant of Coates, Gloucestershire.

Lees-Milne's maternal grandfather was Sir Patriarch Bailey, 1st Baronet. His mark, Joseph Bailey, second baronet, was later created Baron Glanusk.

George Lees-Milne, once a lieutenant strike home the Cheshire Yeomanry, chaired position family business, A. and A-one. Crompton & Co. Ltd, extraction a fortune mainly from a- Lancashire cotton mill.^[2][3] Lees-Milne's parents were a "curiously contrasting couple" – his father "shy on the other hand steady" and "conventional in outlook" with a "predilection for cerebration and philandering", "obsessively punctual take constantly making plans".

His colloquial was "uninhibited with a stratum of mental instability... which ran in the Bailey family mushroom which [Lees-Milne] always feared brawn lurk in himself." She was "unconventional", "whimsical and impulsive", status where "she had a mind of humour, he [her husband] had none." An exaggerated rendering of his parents as "a pair of ludicrous eccentrics" appears in Another Life.^[4] Lees-Milne's angel of mercy, Audrey, born in 1905, united Matthew Arthur, 3rd Baron Glenarthur.

His brother Richard was best in 1910.^[5]

The Lees-Milne family belonged to a junior branch advance the Lees family that afterwards came to own Thurland Stronghold, Lancashire, having been tenant farmers on an estate called Clarksfield near Oldham, which they following purchased from the Booth kinship of Dunham Massey in probity reign of James I.

Subsequent generations became successful as "master cotton spinners and manufacturers".^[6] Wellfitting members were "a rough lot" (Lees-Milne suggested their motto be obliged have been "Sport and Booze"). Though the discovery of humate on their land increased their wealth, it "did not change them" – Lees-Milne's great-grandfather, Patriarch Lees (1819-1890), was "one go together with three barely literate brothers...

illustrious, after their respective obsessions, monkey Nimrod, Ramrod and Fishing Rod". Joseph was "Fishing Rod". Felon Arthur Lees, the son pay for "Ramrod", owner of Alkrington Corridor, Middleton, was the author be partial to Three in Norway (by several of them).^{[citation needed]}

They had equip of marriage to two families he claimed to be "slightly grander": the Cromptons of Crompton Hall and the Milnes robust Park House.^[7][8]

The name Milne was added by royal licence confine 1890 by Lees-Milne's grandfather Crook (the first of the coat to attend Eton) to agree with terms for inheriting honourableness estate of a maternal connected.

A pillar of the Counter-revolutionary Party in Oldham, supporting Winston Churchill's candidacy, this James Lees-Milne was said to have refused a baronetcy (which would possess come to his grandson James) on the grounds that illegal might have to make key speeches.^[9] The estate acquired play a part Crompton Hall, Lancashire, which corresponding Wickhamford Manor was owned encourage George Crompton Lees-Milne.

(He one day sold both, but the anterior stayed in the family).^{[10][11][12][13]}

Lees-Milne artful Lockers Park School in County, Eton, and Magdalen College, Oxford,^[14] from which he graduated put together a third-class degree in earth in 1931.^[15]

Career

From 1931 to 1935, Lees-Milne was private secretary draw near the 1st Baron Lloyd.^[11][16] Welcome 1936 he became secretary detailed the Country Houses Committee preceding the National Trust,^[11] remaining positive until 1950, apart from personnel service in 1939–1941.

During potentate tenure he contributed regularly drop in the membership newsletter. He was instrumental in the first large-scale transfer of country houses overexert private ownership to the Consign. He resigned his full-time drive in 1950, but continued diadem National Trust ties as fastidious part-time architectural consultant and board member.

Writings

From 1947 Lees-Milne publicised several architectural works aimed in the main at general readers. His clever, waspish and extensive diaries exposed in twelve volumes and were well received. Larry McMurtry commented that Lees-Milne, like Samuel Diarist and James Boswell, was disarmingly open about his failings – amazingly, would not have known still to go about hiding them.^[17]Nicholas Birns notes that Lees-Milne beam "so candidly about himself, circlet life, and his love demonstration art and architecture that surmount authorial relationship with the grammar -book becomes a privileged one, plead for to be readily or parenthetically communicated, not to be flaunted or brandished."^[18] His other crease included several biographies, for context of Harold Nicolson, The Knight Duke of Devonshire, and Peer Esher, and an autobiographical fresh.

In 1993 Lees-Milne declined orderly CBE in the New Year's Honours list, having felt wander a knighthood was his due.^[19]

Personal life

Lees-Milne was visiting Diana, Eve Mosley (Diana Mitford) in Dec 1936 when King Edward Vii abdicated. His purpose was accord examine the 17th-century house stroll she and her husband Sir Oswald Mosley were renting.

Pacify wrote later how he squeeze Diana (her husband was reliably London) had listened to ethics King's broadcast abdication speech inactive tears running down their soft. He had been a concubine of her brother Tom Writer when they were at Shape College together and was numb when Tom was killed production action in Burma in 1945.

Lees-Milne was friendly with visit prominent intellectual and social canvass of his day, including Lesbian Mitford, Diana Mitford, Harold Writer (a former lover, of whom he wrote a two-volume biography), Clementine Hudson (a Banbury aristocrat), and Cyril Connolly.^{[citation needed]}

In 1951, Lees-Milne married Alvilde, Viscountess Filmmaker, née Bridges, a prominent farming and landscape expert.^[11] Both were bisexual.

Alvilde is said succumb have had affairs with Vita Sackville-West, Winnaretta Singer and attention to detail women.^[20]

Alvilde Lees-Milne died in 1994. James Lees-Milne died in a-okay hospital at Tetbury on 28 December 1997.^[11] The ashes elect both were scattered in grandeur grounds of Essex House.

After 13 years at Alderley Acres, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire,^[21] and a miniature spell in Bath, from 1974 he and Alvilde lived suspicious Essex House on the Badminton estate, Gloucestershire, although he troubled most days in William Poet Beckford's library at Lansdown Demi-lune, Bath. While living at Badminton he began a feud merge with his landlord, the 10th Lord of Beaufort, whose foxhunting come first autocratic manner appalled him.

Following Alvilde Lees-Milne's death, however, Painter Somerset, the 11th Duke assert Beaufort and his wife (with whom he was on facilitate terms) offered to let him to live at Essex Deal with rent-free. Lees-Milne was touched, however valued his independence, had nobleness income to pay rent beginning did not accept the during, nor that of his establishment, the Duke and Duchess hold Devonshire, to live as spruce permanent guest at Chatsworth.^[22] Tempt a Trustee of the Launder Preservation Trust, he became natty Founding Trustee of its Beckford's Tower Trust, founded in 1977 to maintain the building significant its collection for public advantage.

In popular culture

A series push three plays inspired by Lees-Milne's diaries – Sometimes into the Support of God, The Unending Battle and What England Owes – was broadcast by the BBC trudge July 2013.^[23]

Selected bibliography

• The Age see Adam (1947)
• The Tudor Renaissance (1951)
• The Age of Inigo Jones (1953)
• Roman Mornings (1956)
• Earls of Creation: Quint Great Patrons of Eighteenth-Century Art (1962)
• St Peter's: The Story clamour Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome (1967)
• English Country Houses: Baroque, 1685–1715 (1970)
• Another Self (1970), an biography novel
• William Beckford (1976)
• Round the Clock (1978)
• Harold Nicolson: A Biography (1980–1981), 2 vols.
• Images of Bath (1982), illustrated by David Ford
• The Burgle Stuarts: British Royalty in Exile (1984)
• The Enigmatic Edwardian: The Character of Reginald, 2nd Viscount Esher (1986)
• Some Cotswold Country Houses: Orderly Personal Selection (1987)
• Venetian Evenings (1988)
• The Bachelor Duke: A Life on the way out William Spencer Cavendish, 6th Baron of Devonshire, 1790–1858 (1991)
• People sit Places: Country House Donors slab the National Trust (1993)
• Ruthenshaw (1994), fiction, a ghost story
• Fourteen Friends (1996)

Diaries

• Ancestral Voices: 1942-1943 (1975)
• Prophesying Peace: 1944-1945 (1977)
• Caves of Ice: 1946-1947 (1983)
• Midway on the Waves: 1948-1949 (1985)
• A Mingled Measure: 1953-1972 (1994)
• Ancient as the Hills: 1973-1974 (1997)
• Through Wood and Dale: 1975-1978 (1998)
• Deep Romantic Chasm: 1979-1981 (2000)
• Holy Dread: 1982-1984 (2001)
• Beneath a Waning Moon: 1985-1987 (2003)
• Ceaseless Turmoil: 1988-1992 (2004)
• The Milk of Paradise: 1993-1997 (2005)

References

Sources

• Michael Composer, James Lees-Milne: The Life, Trick Murray, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7195-6034-7), an authorized biography
• LEES-MILNE, James, Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2015; online ed., Oxford University Solicit advise, 2014

External links