Portrait of Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry, with Viscount Castlereagh

At the age of twenty-one Lady Edith Chaplin married Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1878-1949), heir to the 6th Marquess of Londonderry. Her father, was a dedicated Conservative politician so after her mother’s death when she was aged merely three, the responsibility for her upbringing largely passed to her maternal grandparents, the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland. Castlereagh inherited the Londonderry Marquessate in 1915. He too was a key Conservative politician, who most notably promoted the development of radar and the Spitfire in the build up to the Second World War whilst serving as minister for air. Lady Londonderry was a fervent suffragette, and was instrumental in the foundation of the Woman’s Legion during the Great War. It was at this time that she established the famed ‘Ark’ club at Londonderry House (so named because every member had to adopt the name of an animal), the club became a gathering point for artists and writers, royals and politicians during the dark days of the war. She would become the third and last Marchioness of Londonderry to fulfil the role of great Tory hostess, presiding with ease sometimes over as many as sixteen hundred guests at Londonderry house. Following the Great War, Lady Londonderry was instrumental in the restoration of Londonderry House to its former position at the centre of the capital’s social and political life, a position resolutely maintained as all the great houses which surrounded it fell prey to the developers wrecking ball. Anne de Courcy describes Lady Londonderry as ‘a dazzling symbol of wealth, power, glamour and influence to all those who walked up the great staircase of Londonderry House, and to the many more who aspired to.’ In her biography, Society’s Queen, The Life of Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry (Phoenix, London 1992, p. 172)