Lady Georgiana Curzon
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Georgiana_Curzon.jpg/220px-Georgiana_Curzon.jpg)
Lady Georgiana Mary Curzon Kidston, Lady Starkey (7 January 1910 - 11 January 1976) was an English socialite, included in The Book of Beauty by Cecil Beaton.
Biography
Lady Georgiana Mary Curzon was born on 7 January 1910,[1] the daughter of Francis Curzon, 5th Earl Howe and Mary Curzon, Lady Howe.[1]
In the 1930s Lady Georgiana Curzon modelled for Pond's[2] and Copley's.[3]
In 1933, Lady Georgiana Curzon, Miss Deirdre Hart-Davis, the Lady Anne Wellesley and Miss Nancy Beaton were photographed together for The Book of Beauty of Cecil Beaton.[4]
In 1934 she met war-time hero Roger Bushell and they fell in love. Curzon's father did not approve and forced her to marry the son of a family friend.[5] On November 1935 Georgiana Curzon married Home Ronald Archibald Kidston.[1][6] They had one son, Glen Kidston (b. 1937), but the marriage was unhappy (Kidston apparently admitted adultery with Curzon's stepmother) and divorced in 1943.[1][7]
Bushell never forgot Curzon and it has been said that he was telling his fellow prisoners that "Georgie" was his true love and that he would one day marry her. Unfortunately Bushell was killed by the Gestapo in 1944, his story life recounted in The Great Escape, in which his role is played by Richard Attenborough. For years after his death, Curzon placed an "In Memoriam" advertisement in The Times on his birthday signing "Love is Immortal, Georgie".[5]
On 1 November 1957 she married Lord Lewis Stanton Starkey.[1][6]
She died on 11 January 1976.[1] She is buried at Holy Trinity, Penn Street, and on the tombstone there are two lines by Tennyson: "Oh for the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still".[5]
References
- ^ a b c d e f Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003
- ^ Pearson, Simon (2014). Un eroe in fuga. Newton Compton Editori. p. 274. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
- ^ "1930s Fashion Advice". Knitting Now and Then. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
- ^ Beaton, Cecil (1933). The Book Of Beauty. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
- ^ a b c Brazil, Eddie (2017). Secret High Wycombe. Amberley Publishing Limited. p. 90. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
- ^ a b "Lady Georgiana Mary Kidston (née Curzon, later Lady Starkey)". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
- ^ "Earl Howe Again in Divorce Court". The Telegraph. Brisbane, Queensland. 31 July 1943. p. 2. Retrieved 20 February 2017.