Claudia Renton

This is an interesting and reasonably thorough biography of the three Wyndham sisters who were influential in the society and politics of the period from the 1890s to the Great War, although rather less so afterwards (and the sub-title 'three sisters at the heart of power' is perhaps pushing it a bit anyway). The juggling between the parallel but not identical stories of the three sisters is done quite well, with a good balance between each - although there are one or two anti-Pamela lapses and the space devoted to the middle sister Madeline steadily declines even though she is the only one of the trio who made any discernible contribution to wider society. The book is readable and interesting. It is better on family matters than politics.

It suffers from some flaws: first, the needless inclusion of information likely to be known already to anyone interested enough in the period to read this book (eg the Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior cleric of the CofE, or how voting takes place in Parliament); and secondly the regular occurrence of factual errors in the more general area of politics and current events where the author is less sure of her ground (eg mangled election results, and confusion over the setting up of the Esher Committee). A family member who died on the Somme in the autumn of 1916 is shown in the book's family tree illustration as having died in 1915, showing a lack of respect when the author and publisher cannot even get this right); and the description of the Somme campaign claims that there was a total of 1.3m dead on both sides, whereas the correct figure is about 300,000 – bad enough, but careful reading through of the draft by someone knowledgeable about the period would have immediately shown up such blatant errors.

There is also too great a willingness to just recount the accepted version of events, for example the 1910-11 constitutional crisis which portrays Knollys as the villain, or lazy atttribution of WW1 battle losses to the incompetence of the generals without mentioning the demands made on them by politicians.

On the whole the impression given of the family is a positive one, and it is as well for a biographer to be sympathetic towards her subjects; the book has what one might be called a liberal bias, although many Tories feature in it, but the approach is nearly always reasonably fair. One exception is a wholly unwarranted attack on the poet and soldier Julian Grenfell and his mother.

It is a pity that the book ends by giving more space to Pamela's spiritualist rantings, already dealt with at length earlier. And isn't it time publishers clamped down on the self-indulgence of naming endless family members in the acknowledgements, even those whose contribution to the book was nil?… (more)

"A gilded family of remarkable women"
By sally tarbox on 11 January 2018
Format: Kindle Edition
I really enjoyed this biography of the three Wyndham sisters, (and their two brothers) born to a wealthy, bohemian family in the 1860s. From their childhood, marriages - happy and not - love affairs and children, to their friends and associates. As part of the intellectual 'Souls' set, they mixed with politicians, artists and other notables.
It's quite touchingly written as the three bright young things live through war (the five siblings lost a total of five sons), bereavement and disillusionment and move into a chastened old age. The author describes the political world along with the personal, as campaigns and elections impact on their lives.
Immerses the reader in a distant age of Downton Abbey-type privilege. Very readable.
B/w photos… (more)

Oh my what a book! What a family! The Wyndhams consisted of indolent, aristocratic the Hon. Percy and his artistic but ambitious but penurious wife Madeline (descended from French royalty through Madame de Genlis and La Belle Pamela) who marry and produce a family of talented, beautiful, complex and star-like children. There was George , Mary, Guy (the dull one), Madeline and Pamela.

Inevitably some siblings are more interesting that the others. George was a dazzling young politician who married an older woman and planned to end as Prime Minister. His career went horribly wrong and he ended as a bitter right-winger. Mary married the feckless 11th Earl of Wemyss (adulterer and gambler) and was perhaps, probably or most likely the mistress of Prime Minister A.J. Balfour and the great love of his life. Despite some really awful political decisions, there is a touching photograph of them in old age in macs, unflattering hats and with dogs. Pamela was a late Victorian beauty, heart broken by a bounder and so she married a millionaire and produced beautiful but emotionally damaged children. Madeline was the happiest married to a country squire. All three sisters were painted by Sargent in a triple portrait justly famous for its beauty, elegance and disdainful hauteur. It was almost a summation of the world they occupied that was to be so battered by the First World War.

A contemporary said Lady Elcho 'is an angel: of all the women I know, an angel.' Pamela was 'an Olympian character, she floated to and fro between Wilsford [her Wiltshire Arts and Crafts house] and the Glen [ Victorian baronial house her husband inherited], appreciating their different beauties, and so well buttressed by wealth that she never had to catch a bus or think about the price of fish.' When her husband, Lord Glenconner died she rented out their London mansion and chose a modest selection of picture to take with her: two Turners, two Bonningtons, a Constable, three Nasmyths, two Lancrets, two Hogarths, one each of Floris, Orpen, Raeburn, Mignard, Reynolds, Zoffany, Leslie, Angelica Kauffmann, Millais and Natier, two Morland pictures and one by Fragonard.

Mary lost two sons, Yvo in 1915 and Hugo in 1916, and Pamela's eldest son Edward Wyndham Tennant died 1915 in the First War. Both women were stricken. Pamela surrounded herself with birds who sang to her and spiritualists who claimed to be able to speak to her dead son. She later married a fellow naturalist, Sir Edward Grey who had been Foreign Secretary when the First World War broke out. Mary considered that her life's work had been at her beloved old house Stanway. There she had created 'a wonderful centre of Love and Vitality (Life) Radiance and Harmony, and I begin to see dimly that I have done something, or … something has been done thro' me, for to have built up this home life is something and to have the radiating centre from which people can draw something and pass it on, is like having founded a watering place!'

Claudia Renton's book has a wonderful set of characters, fantastic sources, is excellently told and is heartbreaking, very funny (the delusions of the poetic Pamela), moving and romantic (Mary's love affair in the desert) and a perfect history of an era and family. This is a début book too!… (more)