Ivy Cavendish-Bentinck, Duchess of PortlandGBE (née Gordon-Lennox; 16 June 1887 – 3 March 1982) was Duchess of Portland from 1943 – 1977 and afterwards Dowager Duchess. She initiated the Harley Foundation, "to encourage creativity".
Family background and early years
Ivy Gordon-Lennox was born in London[1] on 16 June 1887, the daughter of Colonel Lord Algernon Charles Gordon-Lennox (19 September 1847, London – 3 October 1921) and his wife, Blanche, Lady Algernon Gordon-Lennox (née Maynard; 14 February 1864, London – 17 August 1945), who were married at Easton on 31 August 1886. Ivy was their only child.[2]
In September 1910, Lady Algernon Gordon-Lennox took firm action to quell a rumour that her daughter was engaged to marry Edward Turnour, 6th Earl Winterton. A notice to this purpose appeared in the New York Times, reading:
Ivy Gordon-Lennox Not Engaged. Special Cable to The New York Times. London, Sept. 24 [1910]. Lady Algernon Gordon-Lennox contradicts the report current in London, and referred to in these dispatches last week, of the engagement of her daughter, Ivy, to Earl Winterton.[6]
Winterton married the Hon. Cecilia Monica Wilson in 1924, and died childless in 1962.[7]
In 1943, Ivy Titchfield became Duchess of Portland when her father-in-law died and her husband inherited his father's titles.
In 1977, the Duchess set up the Harley Foundation intended "to encourage creativity in all of us". She intended it to help artists by providing affordable work-space in quiet surroundings, to support the survival of specialist craft skills in an age of mass production, and to improve public access to the visual arts. The Foundation was granted a long lease of some properties at Welbeck and it now maintains three sets of studios there, with space for up to thirty artists and craft-workers, plus a gallery and craft shop.[11][12]
The Duke and Duchess of Portland had two daughters, Lady Anne Cavendish-Bentinck, born on 6 September 1916; and Lady Victoria Margaret Cavendish-Bentinck, born on 9 October 1918.[3]
The first daughter remained unmarried throughout her life and was known as Lady Anne Bentinck.[3] In April 2008, at the age of ninety-one, she was reported in the Sunday Times Rich List to be the 511th richest person in the United Kingdom, with a fortune estimated at £158 million, largely in art and land.[13] She died on 21 December 2008.[3]
The second daughter, Lady Victoria, married the Italian Don Gaetano Parente, Principe di Castel Viscardo, on 12 April 1950. She had one son, William Henry Marcello Parente (b. 1951), and died on 29 August 1955, aged 36.[3] The Portlands' only grandchild, William Parente, of Welbeck Abbey, was appointed High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 2003.[14]
Ancestry
Ancestors of Ivy Cavendish-Bentinck, Duchess of Portland[15]
^"No. 28570". The London Gazette. 9 January 1912. p. 209.: "Marlborough House, 1st January, 1912. Queen Alexandra has been graciously pleased to appoint Miss Ivy Gordon-Lennox to be one of the Maids of Honour to Her Majesty in the room of the Honourable Blanche Lascelles, resigned."
^War Diary: May 1915 from National Archives (ref. WO95/3988) at scarletfinders.co.uk, accessed 24 July 2008
^Portrait of a LadyArchived 16 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine at jssgallery.org, accessed 24 July 2008, with information Christopher Wentworth-Stanley, European Editor, The Catalogue Raisonné of Works by Philip de László
^The Sunday Times (London), 27 April 2008, p. 61: "Bentinck, 91, who lives on a 17,000-acre (69 km2) Nottinghamshire estate, has land and property worth £58m. The daughter of the 7th Duke of Portland also owned impressive fine art treasures."