Margaret Elizabeth Lewthwaite (1907-1990)
Written by Tim Cockerill
Early Life and Education
Margaret Elizabeth Edmonds ( known as Peggy) was born in Manhattan, New York on 9 August 1907,the daughter of Harry Elias Edmonds ( 1883-1979), a YMCA official, and his wife Florence Jane Bolton Qua ( 1883-1933),the daughter of George Franklin Qua (1863-1950), owner of a clothing and shoe business in Michigan. The Qua family had settled in Massachusetts in 1740. Apart from her father, the greatest influence on Peggy Edmonds early life was her Harvard educated cousin, Stanley Elroy Qua (1880-1965), the 17th and arguably most distinguished chief justice of Massachusetts who was on the bench for a record-breaking 35 years.
In 1909 Peggy's father Harry had a chance encounter with a lone graduate from China and began to invite international students to the family home for Sunday supper. He dreamed of creating a place for such international students to reside, feel at home, further their studies and to generate camaraderie with others. This idea was brought to life in 1924 by the philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller Jr. (1874-1960), an oil tycoon, and Cleveland H. Dodge (1860-1926), the owner of a copper mining business. They jointly funded the construction of International House, an enormous building which overlooks the Hudson River. Harry Edmonds was appointed the first director and the building was in time designated a New York Landmark. It was the first global community of its kind, pre-dating the United Nations by 21 years and has, on average, 700 graduate students at any one time. Since 1924, 65,000 students have called it their home. Harry held the post until 1934 and this year it celebrates its centenary.
Growing up in New York, Peggy Edmonds first demonstrated an artistic talent at the age of nine and, after attending Miss Chaplin's School, the most fashionable school for young ladies in New York City, she then went on to study painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, graduating in Fine Arts in 1928.
Career
From Paris she returned to New York and became for a time a textile designer but whilst on a visit to England in the early 1930s she suffered a hunting accident in Northamptonshire. Whilst recovering, she met and married Rainald Lewthwaite (1913-2003), then a second lieutenant in the Scots Guards, later a brigadier and the eventual heir to a baronetcy.
In 1939, soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, Rainald was posted to Egypt and Peggy ran occupational therapy activities for Middle East Hospitals from a base in the 15th Scottish General Hospital. As John Candle, her obiturist , recounts: ‘her remarkable skills, first developed while a member of the Junior League as a schoolgirl in New York, saved the minds and helped the bodies of those wounded in the great desert battles, including El-Alamein’. She possessed considerable powers of both compassion and persuasion and the more improbable activities she used were needlework and embroidery. However, the down side of all this was that Peggy overworked to such an extent that her body never fully recovered. Although still a citizen of the United States, she was one of the first Americans to be awarded the MBE in 1942 for her efforts on behalf of the Allied troops.
After the war Peggy came under the influence of the artist Augustus John (1878-1961), OM, RA, who became her mentor. Under his guidance her portrait painting developed to such an extent that he once told her that had she stuck single-mindedly to developing her artistic potential, she would have become the foremost American artist of her generation. In 1950 her husband, who had won an MC in 1943 and was now a lieutenant colonel, was posted to Washington DC to join the Joint Services Mission and Peggy was able to resume both her family life and her artistic career. Almost immediately on arriving in Washington she was commissioned to paint the official leaving portraits of members of the outgoing Eienhower cabinet, which at the time included John Foster Dulles (1888-1959) and Richard Nixon ( 1913-1994). She was also given permission to sit in the National Gallery in London to paint a copy of George Romney's Miss Juliana Willoughby and when she returned to England she took with her an easel given her by Augustus John. Both of these remained at her Cumbrian home until its recent sale, but a room full of her later paintings were destroyed in a clear-up after her husband's death in 2003.
In 1953, Rainald became the military and defence attache in Paris and Peggy combined both her skills as a diplomatic hostess and an artist, mixing with famous visitors and painting their portraits. General Charles de Gaulle found her fascinating and was amused by her dreadful American-French accent. As her obituary relates, Peggy was for twenty years party to political developments on the world stage but, as a true artist, her political judgements were often suspect, and she always tended to be anti-semitic.
After his retirement from the Army as a brigadier in 1968 Rainald Lewthwaite became Director of Protocol in Hong Kong. Here, from 1969 to 1976, Rainald and Peggy were friendly with the Egyptian career diplomat Omar Sharaf (1925-1993) and went sailing with him in the harbour. Intrigued by their proximity to China, Peggy was keen to visit but the general view was that this was impossible. Nothing daunted, she used all her influence to obtain a visa to China where she rather astonishingly was commissioned to paint portraits of members of the Communist government. It was at this time that the Lewthwaites also became friendly with George and Barbara Bush, when George was the US charge d'affaires in Peking. The couples were drawn together as both families had experienced the death of a child.
In 1953 Peggy wrote Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace, in memory of her daughter Mary-Rose, who had died at the age of three in 1949. Dedicated to 'All children everywhere' it remains a consistent back-list seller, with all the proceeds going to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London.
Once her husband had finished his term of duty in Hong Kong in 1976, the family at last settled at Broadgate, the ancestral estate near Millom, although they always retained a house in London. Twenty years earlier, in 1953, Rainald had bought out his childless elder brother William (1912-1993), the third baronet, and his mother, but for many years afterwards the house was shut up for most of the time and rarely visited. Now Rainald was able to take an interest in his estate, particularly enjoying forestry, but he took no part in public life or field sports. Peggy was able to concentrate on her painting, often choosing local views and farmhouses rather than portrait painting. The story goes that when Peggy first visited one of the more isolated hill farms on the estate she emerged from the farmhouse visibly shaken, remarking: ‘this is medieval’, which rather surprised Rainald who, of course, was used to it. She also befriended and encouraged local literary figures, such as the author and poet Norman Nicholson (1914-1987) of Millom.
Marriage and Family
Margaret Edmonds married Rainald Gilfrid Lewthwaite (1913-2003; DCB), on the 3 January 1936 at Fawsley Church, near Daventry, Northamptonshire, in the grounds of Fawsley Park, where Rainald's maternal ancestors had been seated since the reign of King Henry V. His mother was intensely proud of this connection, having given Rainald a Knightley name which had family exempla back to the Norman Conquest.
Their marriage, which lasted for fifty-five years, produced four children. The eldest, Margaret Sylvia (1937-1994), was known as 'Markie' and was unmarried and the younger daughter (1946-1949) died young. The elder son David Rainald (1940-2004), later the 5th and last baronet, married in 1969 Diana Helena Tomkinson and had two daughters, who both married and have children. The younger son John Valentine (1944-1994), known as ‘Val’, married in 1967 Elizabeth Georgiana Mildmay-White and also had two daughters.
Peggy Lewthwaite died in London on 20 June 1990 and within four years both Markie and Val died, so that Rainald, who died in his 90th year in 2003, having succeeded his brother to the baronetcy in 1993, outlived three of his four children and was only survived by his son David by a matter of months.
Character
Peggy Lewthwaite was a woman of strong character but was not always an easy person with whom to engage. Few who met her ever forgot her. Standing nearly six foot tall, she had considerable physical presence, and was a person of exceptional energy and charisma. However, as her obituary says ‘nobody who met Peggy was neutral. She could be overwhelmingly generous, warm hearted and courageous but at the other extreme she was bigoted and maintained a most unfortunate anti-semitic streak. Her tongue could be most cruel and many, especially family members, fell foul of her and never fully understood why’. In old age she remained hyperactive and obstinate, never accepting that she was getting older and never losing her American accent.
Sources
- Mosley, Charles, editor-in-chief, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, 2003, pp. 230-232
- The Independent newspaper obituary notice of 1990 by John Candle
- The Times newspaper obituary notice 5 July 1990
- The Daily Telegraph newspaper obituary notice 20 April 2023 of her daughter-in-law, Diana, Lady Lewthwaite
- Family information