Background

Daphne Winifred Louise Fielding (née Vivian) was born on 11 July 1904, in Westminster, London. She was the eldest daughter of George Vivian, 4th Baron Vivian, and Barbara (née Fanning) Vivian. Her parents separated when she was four years old and her father raised the children at Glynn, Cornwall, where the family were known as the 'mad Vivians'.

Education

Daphne received her education at Malvern St. James School and Queen's College in London.

Career

During World War II Daphne served as a librarian for the American Red Cross. She wrote the first guidebook to Longleat, a lively history of the Thynne family from 1566 to 1949, which she researched and wrote in three weeks. This she followed with Before the Sunset Fades (1953), a slim 30-page book about life above and below stairs at Longleat, decorated, appropriately, by her old friend and Wiltshire neighbour Cecil Beaton.

While married to her second husband, she wrote her books Mercury Presides (1954) and its sequel, The Nearest Way Home (1970), and a novel, The Adonis Garden (1961). She then wrote a joint life of Lady Cunard and her daughter Nancy, Emerald and Nancy (1968) and a portrait of Iris Tree, The Rainbow Picnic (1974).

Her last work Face on the Sphinx: a portrait of Gladys Marie Deacon, Duchess of Marlborough was published in 1978.

After the death, of her partner Ben Kittridge, Daphne settled in the Old Laundry in the shadow of Badminton, where she lived the rest of her life.

Achievements

• As an author, Fielding shed light on upper-class society during the first half of the twentieth century. Having been a part of the world of Bright Young Things in the 1920s, she was well known in society as the Marchioness of Bath, and following her marriage to Xan Fielding, she produced a stream of books of easy charm which achieved great popularity. She contributed articles to English newspapers and wrote many books—some reminiscences of her own life, some biographies of aristocrats. These include The Duchess of Jermyn Street: The Life and Good Times of Rosa Lewis of the Cavendish Hotel, The Nearest Way Home, The Face on the Sphinx, Mercury Presides, The Adonis Garden, and Those Remarkable Cunards: Emerald and Nancy (published in England as Emerald and Nancy: Lady Cunard and Her Daughter).

Works

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  • Mercury Presides

    (Of Fielding's memoirs, Mercury Presides, Evelyn Waugh wro...)

    1961
  • The Duchess of Jermyn Street: The Life and Good Times of Rosa Lewis of the Cavendish Hotel 1964
  • The Nearest Way Home 1970
  • Face on the Sphinx: Biography of Gladys Deacon 1978
  • Rainbow Picnic: Portrait of Iris Tree 1974
  • Emerald and Nancy: Lady Cunard and Her Daughter 1968

Personality

Physical Characteristics: Good-looking when young, in later life she was a tall, handsome figure, and could have been mistaken for a distinguished actress.

Connections

Fielding married, firstly, Henry Thynne, 6th Marquess of Bath, on 27 October 1927. Neither his nor her parents approved of the marriage and they were divorced in 1953. She remarried, this time her husband was Major Alexander Wallace Fielding, on 11 July 1953, though the couple were divorced in 1978. However, she was lucky to meet once more an old Oxford friend, Ben Kittridge, an American millionaire, with whom she went to live in Arizona until his death in 1981.

During her life, Fielding had five children: Lady Caroline Jane Thynne, Thomas Timothy Thynne, who died in infancy, Alexander George Thynn, Lord Christopher John Thynne and Lord Valentine Charles Thynne.

Father:

George Vivian

Mother:

Barbara (Fanning) Vivian

First husband:

Viscount Weymouth Thynne

Second husband:

Alexander Wallace Fielding

Daughter:

Caroline Jane Thynne

Son:

Thomas Timothy Thynne

Son:

Christopher John Thynne

Son:

Alexander George Thynne

Son:

Valentine Charles Thynne

Friend:

Robert Heber-Percy

Partner:

Ben Kittridge