Pearl Binder

Lady Elwyn-Jones née Pearl "Polly" Binder (1904 – 1990). Author, playwright, stained-glass artist, lithographer, sculptor and a champion of the Pearly Kings and Queens, she was a legendary character who had a lifelong fascination with the East End of London where she settled in the 1920s. She was born in Salford and studied art at evening classes.

In the early days of television she and the fashion historian James Laver co-presented the first television programme on the history of fashion. Clothes-Line was first aired as a six-part live series in 1937. Pearl Binder could well have been the first heavily pregnant woman to appear on television. Her daughter, Josephine, was born 6 January 1938, almost a month after the last episode aired on 9 December 1937

In the course of her life she travelled extensively in Russia and China, wrote a musical, designed costumes for a theatre company, wrote stories for children, designed a Pearly mug and plate for Wedgwood and instigated and executed 22 armorial windows at the House of Lords. In 1937 she married Frederick Elwyn-Jones and in 1964 he became Lord Chancellor. She took little part in politics but was always a keen supporter of women's rights.

She is the mother of the fashion historian Lou Taylor.