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David Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale

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The Right Honourable
The Lord Redesdale
Redesdale in 1933
Personal details
Born
David Bertram Ogilvy Mitford

(1878-03-13)13 March 1878
Chelsea, London,England
Died17 March 1958(1958-03-17)(aged 80)
Otterburn, Northumberland,England
Spouse
Sydney Bowles
​
(m.1904)​
ChildrenNancy,Pamela,Thomas,Diana,Unity,Jessica,andDeborah
Parent(s)Bertram Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale
Lady Clementine Ogilvy
EducationRadley College
Military service
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Branch/serviceNorthumberland Fusiliers
Royal Air Force
RankCaptain
Battles/warsSecond Boer War
World War I
•Second Battle of Ypres

David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale,JP(13 March 1878 – 17 March 1958) was a British peer, soldier, and landowner. He was the father of theMitford sisters,in whose various novels and memoirs he is depicted.[1]

Ancestry and early life[edit]

The Mitfords are a family of thelanded gentry,originally fromNorthumberland,whose history dates back to the 14th century. Redesdale's great-great-grandfather was the historianWilliam Mitford.Redesdale was the second son of(Algernon) Bertram Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale,and Lady Clementine Gertrude Helen Ogilvy, daughter ofDavid Ogilvy, 10th Earl of Airlie.His father was a diplomat, politician and author, with large inherited estates inGloucestershire,Oxfordshire,and Northumberland. He was raised to the peerage in 1902, and so his son became known as theHon. David Mitford,as the family commonly used the surname 'Mitford' by itself, and not the full 'Freeman-Mitford'.[2]

Mitford's legendary eccentricity was evident from an early age. As a child, he was prone to sudden fits of rage.[3]He was totally uninterested in reading and education and wished only to spend his time riding. He later liked to boast that he had read only one book in his life,Jack London's novelWhite Fang,on the grounds that he had enjoyed it so much he had vowed never to read another.[4]However, he read most of his daughters' books.

His lack of academic aptitude meant that he was not sent toEton,with his older brother, but rather toRadley,with the intention that he should enter the army. However, he failed the entrance examination to theRoyal Military College, Sandhurst,and was instead sent toCeylonto work for a tea planter.[5]

Work and war[edit]

In early 1900, he returned to England from Ceylon, and on 23 May 1900 he joined theNorthumberland Fusiliersas asecond lieutenant.[6]His battalion served in theSecond Boer Warin South Africa, where Mitford soon joined in the fighting, in which he served with distinction and was wounded three times, losing one lung. He was briefly taken prisoner by the Boers in June 1900 but escaped. In May 1901 he was appointedaide-de-camptoLord Methuen,a senior commander during the war, and on 10 August 1901 he was promoted tolieutenant.[6]He was seconded to serve with the 40th (Oxfordshire) Company of theImperial Yeomanry,[7]and returned to the United Kingdom in April 1902.[8]After his return, he was back as a regular lieutenant in his regiment in July 1902,[9]but resigned from the army three months later, in October 1902.[10]

In February 1904, Mitford married Sydney Bowles (1880–1963), whom he had first met ten years previously, when he was 16 and she was 14. She was the daughter ofThomas Gibson Bowles,a journalist and Conservative MP, who in 1863 had founded the magazineVanity Fair,and some years later the women's magazineThe Lady.For a time his father-in-law employed him as manager ofThe Lady,but Mitford showed no interest in, or talent for, this work. The Mitfords travelled regularly toCanada,where Mitford owned a gold claim nearSwastika, Ontario:no gold was ever found there, but he enjoyed the outdoor life. His daughterUnity Valkyrie Mitfordstated that she was conceived in Swastika and shared this fact with Hitler upon becoming one of his British confidants.[11]

On the outbreak of theFirst World Warin 1914, Mitford immediately rejoined the Northumberland Fusiliers. He was commissioned as a lieutenant and served as alogistics officerinFlanders,gaining amention in despatchesfor his bravery at theSecond Battle of Ypres(although there is no available record of this),[12]where his elder brother Clement was killed. With only one lung and by now a captain he was invalided out of active service in 1916.

After his father's death in August 1916, being now Lord Redesdale, he was briefly appointedProvost MarshalforOxfordshire,with responsibility for ensuring the enlistment of new recruits. In 1918–19 he served as a ground officer with theRoyal Air Force.[13]

As Lord Redesdale, he was often silent in theHouse of Lords,but joined the House of Lords Select Committee on Peerages inAbeyancein 1925.

Although Redesdale was now a large landowner, he was not a wealthy man: the estates were poorly developed and rents were low. With seven children to feed and five servants to pay, he could not maintain the expense of his large home atBatsfordin theCotswolds.He bought and extendedAsthall Manorand then moved to nearbySwinbrook.Here he indulged his passion for building by building a new large house, named after the village, which appears as the family home in the books of his daughters Nancy and Jessica. The expense of these moves nearly ruined Redesdale, who was a poor manager of money. This, plus his increasing disappointment that all his later children were girls, led to the deterioration of his temperament which became legendary through his daughters' portrayals of his frequent and terrible rages.

Political views and family splits[edit]

As aConservativepeer,Redesdale was a hereditary member of theHouse of Lords.He attended sessions conscientiously but had little interest in legislation except for being opposed to nearly allprogressivechanges. In the 1930s, however, his wife developed a strong sympathy forfascism,and he favouredNeville Chamberlain'sappeasementapproach towardsNazi Germany.His daughter Jessica, acommunistfrom her teenage years, described him as "one of nature's fascists", but he never joined any fascist party. As a result, he became permanently estranged from Jessica and partly estranged from his eldest daughter Nancy, who was a strong antifascist andmoderate socialist- but not as left-wing as Jessica.

Notice of a demonstration organised by theBritish Brothers' League

The father of his wife Sydney,Thomas Gibson Bowleshad been one of the strongest parliamentary supporters of theRoyal Navywhile he was an MP, and her maternal uncleWilliam Evans-Gordon,MP, was a retiredBritish Indian Armyofficer who was opposed to uncontrolled immigration into Britain, was allied to theBritish Brothers' League,and helped to enact theAliens Act 1905.

Redesdale was an instinctivexenophobe,and came back from the First World War with a dislike of the French and a deep hatred of the Germans. As "Uncle Matthew", who was modelled on Redesdale,[14]put it in his daughter Nancy's 1945 novelThe Pursuit of Love:"Frogsare slightly better thanHunsorWops,but abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends. "[15]He was widely quoted as saying, "Abroad is bloody."

He was initially scornful of the enthusiasm shown by his daughters Diana (wife ofBritish Union of FascistsleaderOswald Mosley) and Unity forNazi GermanyandAdolf Hitler.In November 1938, however, the Redesdales accompanied their daughters to Germany, where they attended theNuremberg Rallyand met Hitler, with whom Unity and Diana were already acquainted. Both the Redesdales were immediately won over by Hitler's charm and by his admiration for theBritish Empire.Redesdale later spoke in the House of Lords in favour of theAnschlussof Austria[16]and of returningGermany's colonies,and he became an even stronger supporter of Chamberlain's policy of appeasement towards Germany. Lady Redesdale went further, writing articles in praise of Hitler and in support ofNational Socialism.[17]

The outbreak of theSecond World Warin 1939 precipitated a series of crises in the Mitford family. Redesdale was, above all, a patriot, and as soon as war was declared by Chamberlain he recanted his support for Hitler and once again became violently anti-German. Lady Redesdale stuck to her Nazi sympathies; as a result, the pair became estranged, separating in 1943. Unity, who was in love with Hitler, attempted suicide inMunichon 3 September 1939 (the day war was declared on Germany by Great Britain), and suffered severe brain-damage. She was brought home an invalid, and Lady Redesdale cared for her until Unity's death in 1948. Diana and Oswald Mosley wereinternedin May 1940 as security risks, and spent over three years in prison until their release in November 1943. Jessica's husband,Esmond Romilly,was lost with this aircraft over the North Sea during a raid on Germany in 1941; this deepened her bitterness towards the "fascist branch" of the family. Jessica never spoke to her father again, although she was reconciled with her mother in the 1950s. Jessica did not speak to Diana again until 1973, although they remained permanently estranged because of their continuing strong political differences.

Children[edit]

The Mitford family in 1928

Redesdale and his wife had one son andsix daughters,who all used the surname Mitford rather than Freeman-Mitford:

For Nancy'sbirth certificate,her father stated his occupation as: "Honourable."[18]

Later life[edit]

In 1945, Tom Mitford was killed in action inBurma,a blow from which Lord Redesdale, already depressed by the break-up of his marriage, never recovered. According to Nancy Mitford's biographer: "Although she [Nancy] was deeply grieved by his death, it did not mean for her, as it did for her parents, that all pleasure in life was over."

Redesdale retreated toInch Kenneth,an island in theInner Hebridesoff the west coast ofScotland,which he had purchased in 1938. Later he moved toRedesdale Cottage,nearOtterburn, Northumberland,his family's ancestral property and lived there as a virtual recluse.[19]

By 1950, when Nancy visited him, he was "frail and old". He died inNorthumberlandin 1958, and was buried in the graveyard of St Mary's Church inSwinbrook,Oxfordshire,where four of his daughters (Nancy, Diana, Unity and Pamela) are also buried.[20]

His title passed to his brother Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 3rd Baron Redesdale.

In fiction as "Uncle Matthew"[edit]

Redesdale is the model for Uncle Matthew, Lord Alconleigh of Alconleigh, in Nancy's novelsThe Pursuit of Love(1945) andLove in a Cold Climate(1949).[14]In a typical passage from the former: "As soon as breakfast was over, he would begin striding about the hall, bellowing at the dogs 'Come here, blast you! Get off that coat!' Kick. 'Stop that noise, blast you!' – shouting for his loader [gun], damning and blasting anyone rash enough to cross his path."[21]He would keep hisbloodhoundsin practice by having them track his children. Uncle Matthew also kept a wartimeentrenching toolon achimneypiecethat still had an enemy's hair and brain parts on it.[22]Nevertheless, both daughters' accounts make it clear that between rages, Redesdale was an indulgent father who loved riding and hunting with his children.

Uncle Matthew was played byMichael Aldridgein the 1980Thames TelevisionseriesLove in a Cold Climate.[23]He was played byAlan Batesinthe BBC production ofLove in a Cold Climate.[24]

References[edit]

  1. ^Jonathan Guinnessand Catherine Guinness:The House of Mitford: Portrait of a Family;Viking (1984).
  2. ^Biographical information from Selina Hastings,Nancy Mitford(Hamish Hamilton 1985), chapter 1.
  3. ^Wright, Ed (2006).Celebrity Family Trees: The World's Most Celebrated and Scandalous Dynasties.Barnes & Noble. p. 162.ISBN978-0-7607-8312-2.
  4. ^Mitford, Deborah (2010).Wait for Me!.New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 4–5.ISBN978-0-374-20768-7.
  5. ^Cortazzi, Hugh (2014).Mitford's Japan: Memories and Recollections, 1866-1906.Routledge. p. 23.ISBN978-1-134-27946-3.
  6. ^abHart′s Army list, 1902
  7. ^"40th Company, 10th Battalion".Angloboerwar.Retrieved6 March2014.
  8. ^"The War – Invalids and others returning home".The Times.No. 36755. London. 30 April 1902. p. 10.
  9. ^"No. 27475".The London Gazette.19 September 1902. p. 6022.
  10. ^"No. 27480".The London Gazette.7 October 1902. p. 6346.
  11. ^Hopper, Tristan (31 January 2017)."The Nazi from Swastika, Ont.: How Canada's most unusually named town spawned a notorious Hitler fangirl".National Post.
  12. ^PRO Kew; file WO 372/14/42889 (Does not exist)
  13. ^National Archives, Kew, file AIR 76/419; name misspelt as "Redesdale, David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman Wilfred".
  14. ^ab"A touch of class,by Maggie Brown ".The Guardian.26 January 2001.Retrieved11 November2017.
  15. ^Nancy Mitford,The Pursuit of Love,113.
  16. ^"British Foreign Policy".Parliamentary Debates (Hansard).29 March 1938.Retrieved20 December2011.
  17. ^Selina Hastings,Nancy Mitford,119.
  18. ^Independent article by Calkin J, 2010; accessed 25 September 2014
  19. ^Acton, Harold (2004).Nancy Mitford.Gibson Square. p. 119.ISBN978-1-903933-34-3.
  20. ^Gliddon, Gerald (2002).The Aristocracy and the Great War.Gliddon Books. p. 300.ISBN978-0-947893-35-4.
  21. ^Nancy Mitford,The Pursuit of Love,28
  22. ^"'The Pursuit of Love' – Nancy Mitford – Fun Facts, Questions, Answers, Information ".Funtrivia. Archived fromthe originalon 12 January 2015.Retrieved20 December2011.
  23. ^"Photographic press agency and picture library".Rex Features.Retrieved20 December2011.
  24. ^"Love in a Cold Climate (TV Mini Series 2001– - IMDb".IMDb.

External links[edit]

Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Baron Redesdale
2nd creation
1916–1958 		Succeeded by
Bertram Thomas Carlyle Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford
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