Lydia Ellen Tritton
Lydia "Nellé" Tritton (Russian: Лидия Тереза ("Нелль") Керенская (Триттон)[1]) was an Australian journalist, poet and "public elocutionist".[2]
Biography
Lydia "Nellé" Tritton was born in Brisbane, Australia on 19 September 1899 and died on 10 April 1946.[3]
As a young woman in her mid twenties, Tritton sailed to London and toured Europe, gaining a reputation for knowledge of international affairs, which brought her into contact with Russian expatriates living in Paris.[2] In 1928 she married a former officer of the White Russian Army, Nicholas Alexander Nadejine, 43, in Kensington registry office. Nadejine, a professional singer, was unsuccessful in joining the Covent Garden Opera Company and reportedly had affairs with various rich Englishwomen.[2] The couple divorced in 1936.
In 1939 Tritton married exiled Russian prime minister Alexander Kerensky in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania and lived in exile in Pennsylvania.[4][5][6] Following their wedding, the Kerenskys lived in Paris briefly before moving to New York. In February 1946, while visiting her parents in Brisbane, Australia, Nell had a stroke and died of chronic nephritis on 10 April.
The story of her life was turned into a play Motherland, in 2016 by playwright Katherine Lyall-Watson.[7]
References
- ^ "Lydia Ellen ("Nell") Kerensky". geni_family_tree. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
- ^ a b c Armstrong, Judith. "Tritton, Lydia Ellen (Nell) (1899–1946)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
- ^ "Obituary - Lydia Ellen (Nell) Tritton - Obituaries Australia".
- ^ Armstrong, Judith. "Tritton, Lydia Ellen (Nell) (1899–1946)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
- ^ Whitman, Alden (12 June 1970). "Alexander Kerensky Dies Here at 89". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
- ^ Howells, Mary. "From Austerity to Prosperity: Trittons in the 1940s". State Library of Queensland. Retrieved 30 August 2023.
- ^ Elliot, Ellen-Maree (7 May 2016). "Motherland at Redland Performing Arts Centre: A gripping tale of Brisbane, Russia and the Nazis". Couriel-Mail. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
Further reading
- Kesteven, Sophie; Whitfeld, Anna (22 July 2020). "The extraordinary life of Nell Tritton, an Australian heiress who saved her husband from assassins". Late Night Live. ABC Radio National. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
