Lois Sturt : Wild Child : Brief Time Line 1900-1937

Lois Sturt : Wild Child 

  Short Time Line  : 1900-1937

Lois: ' The Brightest of the Bright Young Things'

    By William Cross: Author of  “Lois Sturt : Wild Child”

1900 : 25^th  August : Lois Ina  Sturt born, the daughter of  Hon. Humphrey Sturt and Lady Feo  Sturt, later, from 1904 the 2^nd Lord and Lady Alington.

1900-1914 : Lois Sturt’s child hood years are spent at the family seat of Crichel, Dorset and at the Sturt London home in Mayfair at 38 Portman Square. Privately schooled.  Her closest sibling is   Napier  ( always called ‘Naps’)  later, from 1919,  3^rd and last Lord Alington, he died in 1940.

1907 : Little rich kid Lois mixes with other children of the gentry.

September 1915 : Lois Sturt enrols at the Slade School of  Art, London ( leaves Slade 1920).

1919-20 : Lois is presented at Court – first rumblings of marriage, but these soon evaporate. Lois begins a four year affair with Reggie Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.

1920s : Lois appears on stage at charity shows and a regular face at The Embassy Club, The Ritz and Claridges.

1922-4 : Lois stars in “ The Glorious  Adventure” and other silent  films. Lois the flapper drives around London and enjoys new game of ‘ chasing clues’ and a manic social life, including race horse owner.

1926 : Lois is  involved in a fatal car accident, moves to local politics with the Municipal Party in Shoreditch and Hoxton.  She remains active as a race horse owner.

1927-8 : Lois is  engaged to Hon. Evan Frederic  Morgan, heir to Viscount Tredegar, becomes  a Roman Catholic . Lois and Evan step out together, build a dream house, travel  in London and abroad, but they lead separate private lives.

1929-1930s : Lois qualifies as a pilot and travels extensively. Sets up home for herself ( and lovers) in Surrey, still a face in London night clubs and receptions.

1934:  Sues Evan for divorce ( petition lapses ) and  Lois become Viscountess  Tredegar. Suffers depression.

1935-7 : Lois travels extensively overseas and goes for a holiday to Budapest. Plans new career in the movies.

1937 : 18th September, : Lois dies suddenly in Budapest, aged 37. Later her ashes are brought back to be buried in the rose garden at Crichel.

For enquiries /  more detail on the events in the life and times of Lois, Viscountess  Tredegar ,  and the book “ Lois Sturt, Wild Child” by William Cross. Contact Will by e-mail williecross@aol.com

The book is now out of print but Will is happy to help anyone with an interest in Lois Sturt or her husband Evan Morgan.  

Lois Sturt's Engagement Diary April-June 1921

FROM LOIS STURT’S ENGAGEMENT DIARY

APRIL- JUNE 1921

An event first mentioned in April 1921, Hon. Lois Sturt was seen raising money for the Great Northern Hospital.  Lois was billed as being among the stall holders at a bazaar at Crewe House over two days in June raising funds for the Great Northern Hospital, one of the causes supported by all the Sturt  family, including Lois’s mother Lady Feo Sturt and Lois’ brother Naps, 3rd Lord Alington. 

In June, 1921 Lois was in the company  of HRH  Prince Albert ( Bertie) Duke of York - later  George VI - at Charlton, near Banbury for a weekend, playing tennis  with  Lord and Lady Birkenhead and Maxine Forbes Robertson. Charlton boasted three tennis courts. Two grass and one hard.  A mysterious photograph survives in the Lois Sturt Collection at  the National Library of Wales, both Lois and Bertie are in the photograph. This may well solve the mystery of where this snap was taken.  

Also in late June, 1921  Lois was among a select group of 14, including her  fellow actress Lady Diana Cooper ( with her mother Violet, Duchess of  Rutland), the dilettante Victor Cunard and Lady Lavery ( wife of artist Sir John Lavery, a friend of Evan Morgan)  as guests of Patrick Ford MP at Lady Islington’s dance.    

To crown June 1921 off came the first meeting of the cast of  “The Glorious Adventure” – which was released in 1922, as a colour film starring Lady Diana Cooper and Hon. Lois Sturt.

“The creation of the film began in a lovely old world garden behind Addison road, in West London when  a score of figures assembled to rehearse the first scenes from J Stuart Blackton’s epic colour  film         “ The Glorious Adventure”, a story from the time of King Charles II.” Among the actresses were Lady Duff, Lady Diana Cooper and  Hon. Lois Sturt. It was reported that   “ Lois wore “ a yellow frock and a wig as black as the King’s”.  

 For further information of this or any other blog entry, please contact William Cross, Author of " Lois Sturt, Wild Child"

williecross@aol.com

Lois Sturt : Viscountess Tredegar : Wild Child : Lois' People Circle

Lois Sturt : Viscountess Tredegar: Wild Child

                                        New Book by William Cross               

Lois’ People Circle of friends, lovers and enemies and places visited

 1921-1927

Hon. Lois Ina  Sturt ( 1900-1937)  was one of those Bright Young Things who were summed up as idle rich kids.

Lois  was described by the writer  Henry Maxwell,  who knew her well, as a   “ boisterous, life-loving, large-hearted person, who tended to do everything to excess..”  

Over the course of the next few months the Author  William Cross will include ( as a regular blog posting )  an extract  ( based on Lois' engagement diaries and newspaper evidence )  relating to  people and places  Lois Sturt could  be found in the period 1921-1927. These postings  will include Lois' family, friends, lovers and enemies in the years before she married the  Hon. Evan Frederic Morgan, later Lord Tredegar of Tredegar House, Newport, South Wales.

At aged almost 21, in 1921,  Lois was hailed as “ extremely clever, paints well and is a very good dancer.” She had already been chosen to  star in the movies alongside her fellow stage performer, Lady Diana Cooper, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland and wife of the womanising Duff Cooper, also a lover of Lois.

Lois  was a debutante of  the year 1920. She  was still watched over closely by her mother Lady Feo Alington and for the first few months of 1921 by her brother, Naps (  the 3rd Lord Alington). Naps left Britain in the early summer of 1921 to spend time in America to study banking. Since the fun loving Naps was a like pea in the proverbial pod to his  high spirited  sister, banking came last to having a real good time!  

The first items show Lois at  a family wedding and enjoying the company of friends at the Embassy Club, one of London's must be seen in night clubs!!

FEBRUARY 1921

in February, 1921, Lois was at a wedding with her mother and step- grandmother

Lois attended the wedding of her cousin Captain Hon. Alexander Hardinge ( son of Lord Hardinge and Winifred Sturt, a late sister of her Lois’ father ) . The bride was Miss Helen Cecil only child of Lord Edward Cecil.  King George V and Queen Mary with Princess Mary also attended.   The Queen was attended by Mabell, Dowager Countess of Airlie. Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon ( later Duchess of York ) was a bridesmaid.  Feo Alington was accompanied by her late husband’s stepmother Evelyn, Lady Alington.

 Freda Dudley Ward : Mistress of the Prince of Wales

Also in February, 1921 Lois could be  seen dining at the Embassy Club in a cosy milieu with Freda Dudley Ward ( mistress of  Edward,   Prince of Wales) and Freda’s other lover, Michael Herbert ( Lord Pembroke’s cousin [ Reggie Pembroke was Lois' lover  for four years ] ). Huddled in a corner were Evan’s chums Sir Philip Sassoon and Lord Castlerosse.

Any comments or questions, please contact William Cross by e-mail.

williecross@aol.com 

Lois Sturt, Wild Child : A Glance at Hon. Lois Ina Sturt, Viscountess Tredegar

New Book  By William Cross : Now Available  £8.00 Post Free UK

From the age of the flapper, with vivid yarns of those Bright Young Things comes the poignant tale of British high society wild child, the Honourable Lois Ina Sturt, a dazzling, single minded,one-off personality who was dead by the age of 37. Sibling of the enigmatic, hedonistic peer Lord ‘Naps’ Alington, the family pile was the magical Crichel Estate in Dorset. The blond, tubercular Naps was  matched only in devil may care attitude by his younger sister Lois, a delectable, quixotic creature,an accomplished actress and dancer, a clever painter who studied at the Slade School of Art and had her own art studio in Chelsea. She also became a successful race horse owner and breeder of Great Danes. But Lois’ story is largely untold. She was deemed “fast” and “high-spirited”: Lois wanted to knock the stuffing out of convention and achieved this by engaging in several long love affairs, generally with older, married men. She was for four years the lover of the much older Reggie Herbert, 15th Earl of Pembroke, and an intimate around the string of unapproved-of good-time girls chasing Prince George, the ill-fated Duke of Kent. In 1928 Lois entered into an arranged, madcap marriage de convenance with the homosexual Hon. Evan Frederic Morgan, heir to the Viscount Tredegar and died suddenly in Budapest in 1937, a victim of long years of alcohol abuse and insane slimming treatments. Author of previous titles on several forgotten Society figures of the 1920s and 1930s, William Cross presents all the humorous anecdotes, coupled with fascinating, yet often sad facts on the boisterous life and times of Evan Morgan’s first wife Lois, Viscountess Tredegar. Incredibly, Lois may boast a blood connection to the current heir to the British throne.  ISBN 10 1-905914-31-8 and ISBN 13 978-1-905914-31-9

Published by William P. Cross through  Book Midden Publishing 58 Sutton Road, Newport, Gwent NP19 7JF, United Kingdom    £8.00 Post Free UK until 31 December 2014

OVERSEAS ORDERS PLEASE USE AMAZON  Cheques/ POs payable to “ William Cross”