Person    | Female  Born 6/6/1873  Died 21/4/1938

Lady Ottoline Morrell

Categories: Art, Literature

Literary hostess and patron of the arts. Died in a clinic at Tunbridge Wells.

Her Wikipedia page gives much information about her life and confirms that she was born on 6 June 1873 as Ottoline Violet Cavendish-Bentinck, the youngest of the four children of Lieutenant-General Arthur Cavendish-Bentinck (1819-1877) and his second wife Augusta Mary Elizabeth Cavendish-Bentinck née Browne, 1st Baroness Bolsover (1834-1893). On 23 July 1897 she was baptised at St Thomas's Church, Portman Square, Marylebone, where the baptismal register showed her father as a Major-General and that the family were residing at 5 Portman Square.

On 8 February 1902 she married Philip Edward Morrell (1870-1943) in London and on 18 May 1906 both their children were born; their son Hugh Morrell, who died two days later on 20 May 1906, and their daughter Julian Ottoline Morrell (1906-1989). On the night of the 1911 census she is shown as living at 44 Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, with her husband, their daughter, a nurse, a cook, a lady's maid, a housemaid, an under-housemaid, a parlour-maid and a kitchen maid. Also shown on the census as a visitor, was the Australian artist Henry Lamb (1883-1960).

In 1913 her husband bought Garsington Manor, 28 Southend, Garsington, Oxford, OX44 9DH, where they lived until 1928 when electoral registers from that year show her and her husband listed at 10 Gower Street, Holborn. Soon afterwards she developed cancer of the jaw, which meant a long stay in hospital and an operation to have her lower teeth extracted and part of her jawbone removed. She told her friends that the "pain was indescribable" but far worse than the pain was the indignity to live with a seriously disfigured chin. She did her best to disguise this with swathing veils and scarves, tying them with typical Ottoline flamboyance.

She suffered a stroke in 1937 and received treatment at Sherwood Park, a clinic in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, run by Dr Alexander John Douglas Cameron (1887-1938), who on 21 October 1924 had been sentenced to nine months imprisonment for the unlawful killing of John Rowlatt Corner (1897-1924), a farmer of Kelmarsh, Northamptonshire, on 9 June 1924 at the Northampton General Hospital. He treated her with Prontosil, an untested new drug. She got worse and Cameron committed suicide on 19 April 1938. Two days later on 21 April 1938, she died, aged 64 years, of heart failure and was buried at St Winifred's Churchyard, Church Lane, Holbeck Woodhouse, Worksop, S80 3NQ. Probate was granted on 20 July 1938 to her widower husband and her effects totalled £1,832-17s-8d.

Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Lady Ottoline Morrell

Commemorated ati

Lady Ottoline Morrell

Greater London Council Lady Ottoline Morrell, 1873 - 1938, literary hostess ...

Read More

Other Subjects

Philip Bentham
1 memorial
Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin

Artist. Born in Les Andelys, Normandy. He spent a large part of his life in Rome, producing many paintings with an historical theme, such as 'The Adoration of the Golden Calf'.

Person, Art, France, Italy

2 memorials
Michael Ayrton

Michael Ayrton

Artist and writer. Born 3 Hamilton Terrace. Other work by Ayrton in London: Minotaur at London Wall. Died at his London flat. Our picture is a self portrait from 1966.

Person, Art, Literature, Sculpture

1 memorial
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Artist. Born in Seville. Best known for his religious works, he also produced a number of paintings of contemporary women and children. He died after falling from a scaffold when painting an altarp...

Person, Art, Spain

2 memorials
Felix Slade

Felix Slade

Collector of glass, books and engravings funded from the wealth he inherited from his father. Member of the Society of Antiquaries, he endowed 3 Slade Professorships of Fine Art at universities, an...

Person, Art, Philanthropy, Politics & Administration

1 memorial

Previously viewed

Anthony Fatayi-Williams

Anthony Fatayi-Williams

Anthony Adebayo Omoregie Fatayi-Williams was born on 29 January 1979 the son of Dr Alan Fatayi-Williams and Marie Fatiya-Williams née Ikimi. His birth was registered in the 1st quarter of 1979 in t...

Person, Tragedy

3 memorials
Lord Wolfson of Marylebone

Lord Wolfson of Marylebone

Businessman and philanthropist. Leonard Gordon Wolfson was the son of the first baronet, Sir Isaac Wolfson, a businessman who made a fortune with Great Universal Stores and created the philanthropi...

Person, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
Central British Fund for World Jewish Relief

Central British Fund for World Jewish Relief

Now known as the World Jewish Fund.  Established in 1933 as the Central British Fund, the charity rescued over 100,000 Jewish people from Germany before WWII and was also largely responsible for or...

Group, Religion, Social Welfare

1 memorial
Benjamin Cotton

Benjamin Cotton

Benjamin Cotton was born on 10 February 1794, in Leyton, Essex (now Greater London), the ninth of the ten children of Captain Joseph Cotton (1745-1825) and Sarah Cotton née Harrison (1751-1818). On...

Person, Community / Clubs

1 memorial
E. J. Parlanti

E. J. Parlanti

Bronze founder. Ercole Felipo Giacomo Parlanti was born in Rome. He and his older brother Alessandro worked at the Nelli foundry in Rome before moving to London. After his arrival in the UK he used...

Person, Craft / Design, Italy

14 memorials