Background
Julia Camoys Stonor was born Julia Maria Christina Mildred Stonor, the eldest daughter and first child of Ralph Robert Watts Sherman Stonor, 6th Baron Camoys of Stonor Park and Newport, Rhode Island, United States of America (1913–1976), by his wife (Mary) Jeanne Stourton (1913–1987). Her mother"s maternal grandfather was Thomas Southwell, 4th Viscount Southwell. According to Julia Stonor, the Spanish aristocrat Pedro de Zulueta was her mother"s father.
Legally, Jeanne Stourton"s maternal grandfather, was the paternal grandson of Charles Stourton, 19th Baron Stourton.
Jeanne Stourton"s great-uncle the 20th Lord Stourton succeeded as 20th Baron Stourton in 1872, and as 23rd Baron Mowbray & 24th Baron Segrave in 1878 when those baronies (last held by Edward Howard, 9th Duke of Norfolk) were called out of abeyance 101 years after his death in 1777.
Career
She is best known for her books about her family, exposing long-suppressed family scandals and her claims to be the rightful heir to the Camoys barony. She is currently at work on the second part of her memoirs, Sherman"s Daughter. In the first book, she described her half-Spanish half-English mother, who was fathered by a Spanish aristocrat, and whose lover died in the Spanish Civil War fighting on Franco"s side.
Thus, she has argued that she is the rightful heir to the Camoys barony.
She is an active supporter of several charities, including Exiled Writers Ink!, and has worked as a freelance writer, author, human rights activist, volunteer, and charity-supporter. Stonor was one of the many who attended the memorial service for Sir John Mortimer in November 2009.
Two children were born Frances Hélène Jeanne Stonor Saunders (b 1966), or Frances Stonor Saunders, a British journalist and author of, among others, The Cultural Cold War: The C.I.A. and the World of Arts and Letters (The New Press, 2000. First published in the United Kingdom in 1999).
