Lady Cynthia Mosley
| Lady Cynthia Mosley | |
|---|---|
|
Oswald and Cynthia Mosley on their wedding day, 11 May 1920 | |
| Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent | |
|
In office 30 May 1929 – 27 October 1931 | |
| Preceded by | John Ward |
| Succeeded by | Ida Copeland |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Born Cynthia Blanche Curzon 13 August 1898 Kedleston, Derbyshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Died |
16 May 1933 (aged 34) London, England, UK |
| Cause of death | Peritonitis |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party |
Labour Party (1924–1931) New Party (1931–1932) |
| Spouse(s) | Oswald Mosley |
| Children |
Vivien (1921-2002) Nicholas (b. 1923) Michael (b. 1932) |
| Parents |
George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston Mary Curzon, Baroness Curzon of Kedleston |
Lady Cynthia Blanche Mosley[n 1] (23 August 1898 – 16 May 1933), nicknamed "Cimmie", was a British politician of Anglo-American parentage and the first wife of the British Fascist and New Party politician Sir Oswald Mosley, who was formerly a Member of Parliament in both the Conservative and Labour parties.
Childhood
Born Cynthia Blanche Curzon at Kedleston Hall, she was the second daughter of Hon. George Curzon (later Marquess Curzon of Kedleston) 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
On 11 May 1920, Cynthia married the then-Conservative politician, Oswald Mosley. He was her first and only lover.[1]
Children
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[2]
- 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, her husband having been elected MP for Smethwick in 1926. Frustrated with the ruling Labour Party's complacent and conservative response to high levels of unemployment, Oswald Mosley formed the New Party on 1 March 1931 which his wife also joined. The party failed to win any seats at the 1931 general election. After that Mosley started his move towards fascist policies, losing many of those who had joined the New Party as a result.
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.[3]
Electoral defeat and death
All the party's candidates in the 1931 election lost their seat or failed to win in constituencies, instead seeing a unified coalition government which involved the Conservatives, Liberals and a breakaway from the main Labour Party amid the Great Depression. Cynthia Mosley herself did not stand in the election. From then on she drifted away from her husband politically, having no sympathy for his move towards fascism. She died in 1933 at 34 after an operation for peritonitis following acute appendicitis, in London.[4]
Sources
- De Courcy Anne (2003) "The Viceroy's Daughters, The Lives of the Curzon Sisters", Harper Collins; ISBN 0-06-093557-X (biography); retrieved 14 March 2007[5]
- Mosley [6]
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lady Cynthia Mosley
Notes and references
- 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. - ↑ b. 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.[2]
- ↑ One son and two daughters
- ↑ Four sons and one daughter
- References
- ↑ N. Mosley, Rules of the game: Sir Oswald and Lady Cynthia Mosley, 1896-1933, Secker & Warburg (1982), pg. 247
- 1 2 de Courcy Anne (2003) "The Viceroy's Daughters, The Lives of the Curzon Sisters", Harper Collins; ISBN 0-06-093557-X (biography); retrieved 14 March 2007.
- ↑ N. Mosley, Rules of the game : Sir Oswald and Lady Cynthia Mosley, 1896-1933 (Secker & Warburg, 1982), p. 248
- ↑ "Cynthia Mosley (1898 - 1933) - Find A Grave Memorial".
- ↑ Archipelago, World. "HarperCollins US".
- ↑ "MMI Movie Review: Mosley".