Ivy Cavendish-Bentinck, Duchess of Portland

Infobox Person
name = Ivy Cavendish-Bentinck


caption = Ivy Gordon-Lennox by Philip de László, 1915
birth_name = Ivy Gordon-Lennox
birth_date = birth date|1887|6|16
death_date = death date and age|1982|3|3|1887|6|16
death_place = Welbeck Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire
spouse = William Cavendish-Bentinck
(1915-1977)
children = Lady Anne Bentinck (b.1916)
Lady Victoria Bentinck (1918-1955)
parents = Algernon Gordon-Lennox (father)
Blanche Maynard (mother)

Ivy Cavendish-Bentinck, Duchess of Portland DBE (16 June 1887–3 March 1982), born Ivy Gordon-Lennox, was Duchess of Portland from 1943 to 1977 and afterwards Dowager Duchess. She founded the Harley Foundation, "to encourage creativity".

Life

Ivy Gordon-Lennox was born on 16 June 1887, the only child of Colonel Lord Algernon Charles Gordon-Lennox (1847–1921) and his wife Blanche Maynard. Her parents had a country house, Broughton Castle, near Banbury, which was rented from the 18th Lord Saye and Sele, and a house in London at 7, Chesterfield Street, Mayfair. [Ruvigny & Raineval, Marquis of, "The Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal: Clarence Volume" [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=w9UYYThhRIQC&pg=PA238&lpg=PA238&dq=%22Ivy+Gordon-Lennox%22&source=web&ots=mn4nbWXiy7&sig=cWfMmD8D6cnK8vzP9z2ceZaVKCc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result page 238] online at books.google.co.uk, accessed 24 July 2008] Lord Algernon was the second of the four sons of the 6th Duke of Richmond (1818–1903), and his obituary in "The Times" called him "a notable social figure, whose popularity it would be difficult to over-estimate". He served in the Royal Navy, the Life Guards, and the Grenadier Guards, and was twelve years aide-de-camp to H. R. H. the Duke of Cambridge, Commander-in-chief of the British Army. Ivy Gordon-Lennox's maternal grandfather was Colonel the Hon. Charles Maynard, a son of the 3rd Viscount Maynard, ["DEATH OF LD. ALGERNON GORDON-LENNOX - A POPULAR SOCIAL FIGURE" in "The Times" dated October 5, 1921, p. 13] while her three Gordon-Lennox uncles included the 7th Duke of Richmond (1845–1928), Captain Lord Francis Gordon-Lennox, who died before she was born, and Lord Walter Gordon-Lennox (1865–1922), a Conservative member of parliament. Her maternal grandmother was Frances Julia Murray, the elder daughter of Lieutenant General Lord Glenlyon (the second son of John Murray, 4th Duke of Atholl) and of Lady Emily Frances Percy, a daughter of General Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland. [Mosley, "op. cit.", vol. 1, page 135]

On 1 January 1912, Ivy Gordon-Lennox was appointed a Maid of Honour to H. M. Queen Alexandra, the Queen Mother. [LondonGazette|issue=28570|startpage=209|date=9 January 1912|accessdate=2008-07-24:"Marlborough House, 1st January, 1912. Queen Alexandra has been graciously pleased to appoint Miss Ivy Gordon-Lennox to be one of the Maids of Honour to Her Majesty in the room of the Honourable Blanche Lascelles, resigned."] In 1915, during the First World War, she was Princess Victoria's representative in connection with proposed Nurses' Clubs in France, travelling to Étaples and Abbeville. [ [http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/34.html War Diary: May 1915] from National Archives (ref. WO95/3988) at scarletfinders.co.uk, accessed 24 July 2008]

On 12 August 1915, Ivy Gordon-Lennox married William Cavendish-Bentinck, Marquess of Titchfield (1893–1977), son of the 6th Duke of Portland and his wife Winifred Anna Dallas-Yorke. [http://www.thepeerage.com/p962.htm#i9614 Ivy Gordon-Lennox] at thepeerage.com, accessed 24 July 2008] [http://www.thepeerage.com/p962.htm#i9613 Sir William Arthur Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 7th Duke of Portland] at thepeerage.com, accessed 24 July 2008] At the time of this marriage, three portraits of the bride were painted by Philip de László. [ [http://jssgallery.org/other_artists/Philip_Alexius_de_Laszlo/Portrait_of_a_Lady.htm Portrait of a Lady] at jssgallery.org, accessed 24 July 2008, with information Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, European Editor, The Catalogue Raisonné of Works by Philip de László] The couple had two daughters, born in 1916 and 1918.

From 1922 to 1943, Lady Titchfield was a political wife, her husband representing Newark in the House of Commons and serving as a Junior Lord of the Treasury under Stanley Baldwin and again under Ramsay Macdonald.

In 1943, Ivy Titchfield became Duchess of Portland when her father-in-law died and her husband inherited his father's titles.

in 1977, the Duchess set up the Harley Foundation "to encourage creativity in all of us". She intended it to help artists by providing affordable work-space in quiet surroundings, to support the survival of specialist craft skills in an age of mass production, and to improve public access to the visual arts. The Foundation was granted a long lease of some properties at Welbeck and it now maintains three sets of studios there, with space for up to thirty artists and craft-workers, plus a Gallery and craft shop. [ [http://www.harleygallery.co.uk/index.php?pg_id=23 About us - The Harley Foundation] at harleygallery.co.uk, accessed 24 July 2008] [ [http://www.donowdo.com/Art-Craft-And-Sculpture-Galleries/The-Harley-Gallery-Worksop-S80-3LW.htm The Harley Gallery, Welbeck Workshop, Worksop, Nottinghamshire, S80 3LW] at donowdo.com, accessed 24 July 2008]

The Duchess died at Welbeck Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, on 3 March 1982, at the age of ninety-four.

Children

The Duke and Duchess of Portland had two daughters, Lady Alexandra Margaret Anne Cavendish-Bentinck, born on 6 September 1916; and Lady Victoria Margaret Cavendish-Bentinck, born on 9 October 1918.Charles Mosley, ed., "Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage", 107th edition, 3 volumes (Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003), volume 3, page 3336]

The first daughter has remained unmarried and is known as Lady Anne Bentinck. In April 2008, at the age of ninety-one, she was reported in "The Sunday Times" of London to be the 511th richest person in the United Kingdom, with a fortune estimated at £158 million, largely in art and land. ["The Sunday Times" (London), April 27, 2008, p. 61: "Bentinck, 91, who lives on a 17,000-acre Nottinghamshire estate, has land and property worth £58m. The daughter of the 7th Duke of Portland also owns impressive fine art treasures."]

The second daughter, Lady Victoria, married the Italian Don Gaetano Parente, Principe di Castel Viscardo, on 12 April 1950. She had one son, William Henry Marcello Parente, born in 1951, and she died on 29 August 1955, at the age of thirty-six. The Portlands' only grand-child, William Parente, of Welbeck Abbey, was appointed High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 2003. [LondonGazette|issue=56884|startpage=3603|endpage=3604|date=21 March 2003|accessdate=2008-07-24]

Honours

*Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), 1958

Non-engagement in 1910

In September 1910, Ivy Gordon-Lennox's mother took firm action to quell a rumour that her daughter was engaged to marry Edward Turnour, 6th Earl Winterton. A notice to this purpose appeared in the "New York Times", reading: cquote|Ivy Gordon-Lennox Not Engaged. Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES. London, Sept. 24. Lady Algernon Gordon-Lennox contradicts the report current in London, and referred to in these dispatches last week, of the engagement of her daughter, Ivy, to Earl Winterton. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9901E2DD1F39E333A25756C2A96F9C946196D6CF&oref=slogin Ivy Gordon-Lennox Not Engaged] dated September 25, 1910, at nytimes.com, accessed 24 July 2008]

Winterton died unmarried in 1962. [ [http://www.thepeerage.com/p2108.htm#i21075 Edward Turnour, 6th Earl Winterton] at thepeerage.com, accessed 24 July 2008]

References

Winterton died in 1962 not 1982 as detailed.

http://www.thepeerage.com/p2108.htm#i21075