Lady Cynthia Mosley
| Lady Cynthia Mosley | |
|---|---|
 Oswald and Cynthia Mosley on their wedding day, 11 May 1920 |
|
| Born | 23 August 1898 Kedleston, Derbyshire, England |
| Died | 16 May 1933 (aged 34) London, England |
| Cause of death | Peritonitis |
| Nationality | English |
| Ethnicity | White |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Known for | Oswald Mosley's first wife |
| Spouse(s) | Oswald Mosley |
| Children | Vivien (1921-2002) Nicholas Mosley (b. 1923) Michael (b. 1932) |
| Parents | George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston Mary Curzon, Baroness Curzon of Kedleston |
| Relatives | Mitford family |
Lady Cynthia Blanche ("Cimmie") Mosley[n 1] (23 August 1898 – 16 May 1933) was a British politician of Anglo-American parentage and the first wife of the British fascist New Party politician Sir Oswald Mosley who was formerly an MP in the Conservative and Labour parties.
Contents |
Childhood [edit]
Born Cynthia Blanche Curzon at Kedleston Hall, she was the second daughter of Hon. George Curzon (created Marquess Curzon of Kedleston for his earlier work as Viceroy and then-current work as Foreign Secretary in 1921) and his first wife, Mary Victoria Leiter, an American department-store heiress. As the daughter of a Marquess, she was styled Lady Cynthia.
Marriage, Family and Politics [edit]
On 11 May 1920, Cynthia married the then-Conservative politician, Oswald Mosley. He was her first and only lover.
Children [edit]
They had three children:
- Vivien Elizabeth Mosley (25 February 1921 – 26 August 2002)[n 2] - married 15 January 1949 Desmond Francis Forbes Adam (1926 - 1958) (car crash), educated at Eton College, and at King's College, Cambridge[1]
- and had issue[n 3]
- Nicholas Mosley, 3rd Baron Ravensdale (Lord Ravensdale) (born 25 June 1923), a successful novelist who wrote a biography of his father and edited his memoirs for publication;
- and had issue[n 4]
- Michael Mosley (born 25 April 1932), unmarried and without issue.
- Political Life
After both joined the Labour Party in 1924, she was elected Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Stoke-on-Trent in 1929 and her husband was elected for Smethwick at the same time. After finding the Labour Party unsuitable, Oswald formed the New Party on 1 March 1931 which Lady Cynthia also joined.
The party soon adopted fascist policies and became less popular by the time of the sudden general election later that year.
- Husband's Adultery
During their marriage her younger sister Lady Alexandra was a mistress of Mosley, as was, briefly, their stepmother, Grace Curzon, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston. In 1932 he began an affair with Diana Mitford, whom he married in 1936, and had further issue. Diana was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters, known for her friendship with Adolf Hitler.
Electoral Defeat and Death [edit]
All the party's candidates in the 1931 election (including Lady Cynthia) lost their seat or failed to win in constituencies, instead seeing a unified coalition government which involved all main three parties' politicians amid the Great Depression. After their defeat, Lady Cynthia continued to support her husband in his fascist studies until her death in 1933 at age 34 after an operation for peritonitis following acute appendicitis, in London.
Footnotes [edit]
- ^ a b de Courcy Anne (2003) "The Viceroy's Daughters, The Lives of the Curzon Sisters", Harper Collins,
ISBN 0-06-093557-X (biography), retrieved from publisher 3/14/2007, below
Notes and references [edit]
- Notes
- ^ See also Courtesy titles in the United Kingdom.
As the wife of a baronet she was occasionally seen in records as Lady Mosley; however by preference always referred to as Lady Cynthia (when used in public with a surname, Curzon/Mosley), her own title as the daughter of a marquess. - ^ and Max Mosleyb. 25 February, 1921, d. 25 August, 2002, aged 81. m. St-Martin-in-the-Fields, London, January, 1949, Desmond Francis Forbes Adam, the son of Colin Gurdon Forbes Adam, of Skipwith Hall, Selby, Chairman of Yorkshire Post Newspapers, by his wife, the former Hon. Irene Constance Lawley, daughter of the 3rd Lord Wenlock. Vivien's father, Sir Oswald, gave her in marriage at the ceremony. The couple had a son, Rupert, born in 1957, and two daughters, Cynthia, born in 1950, and Arabella, born in 1952. The marriage ended, 3 January, 1958, when her husband was killed instantly in a road accident at Newark. He was 31, travelling from London to a family christening in Yorkshire, when a car, in which he was a passenger, collided with a lorry.[1]
- ^ One son and two daughters
- ^ Four sons and one daughter
- References
- ^ a b de Courcy Anne (2003) "The Viceroy's Daughters, The Lives of the Curzon Sisters", Harper Collins,
ISBN 0-06-093557-X (biography), retrieved from publisher 3/14/2007, below
- de Courcy Anne (2003) "The Viceroy's Daughters, The Lives of the Curzon Sisters", Harper Collins,
ISBN 0-06-093557-X (biography), retrieved from publisher 3/14/2007 publisher's partial Abstract. - Mosley, Review
External links [edit]
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lady Cynthia Mosley
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Ward |
Member of Parliament for Stoke 1929–1931 |
Succeeded by Ida Copeland |
- 1898 births
- 1933 deaths
- British fascists
- Daughters of British marquesses
- Deaths from peritonitis
- Disease-related deaths in England
- English politicians
- Labour Party (UK) MPs
- Members of the United Kingdom Parliament for English constituencies
- British female MPs
- People from Kedleston
- UK MPs 1929–1931
- Far-right politics in the United Kingdom
- Curzon family
