Beatrice 001

Lady Portsmouth, extract from a photograph of the earl and countess in the history of the Earls of Portsmouth and the Wallop Family by Alison M Deveson. http://www.amazon.co.uk/En-Suivant-Verite-History-Portsmouth/dp/0955824400

Lady Portsmouth flung down her copy of Tatler, exasperated by the veneer of fluffy flapper femininity some editor had presumably thought necessary to overlay on the writing of Olivia Maitland Davidson, a perfectly intelligent girl (one of the Gloucestershire Viners) who was entirely capable of writing an interesting article without the word ‘excitements’ having to be rendered as ‘ ‘citements’. Really – how patronising!

The letters of Eve Nov 1914 2 - CopyEve 7 October 1914Eve 7 October 1914 - CopyOlivia was writing these letters every week, and they were really quite entertaining, even if Lady Portsmouth inevitably found herself wincing at the winsomeness.


Beatrice Mary Pease (1866-1935) was one of THE Peases, that is to say the Quaker family of industrialists and philanthropists that built the Stockton-Darlington railway, amongst many other achievements. After her father Edward’s death in 1880, she was given a home by her uncle, Sir Joseph Peaseuntil her marriage to the 6th Earl of Portsmouth. We shall hear much more of her.