Life
1906-2002; [Elizabeth née Harman; m. Pakenham; Elizabeth Longford],
b. 30 Aug., Harley St.; eldest of five children, her parents both being
physicians and her mother a sis. of Joseph Chamberlain; brought up as
liberal Jew; ed. Francis Holland School, London and Headington; afterwards
at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford; called ‘one of those aesthetic molls’
by John Betjeman; friendly with Gaitskell, Maurice Bowra, Evelyn Waugh
and Davied Cecil; bestowed kiss on brow sleeping Frank Pakenham (7th earl
- ‘like a Greek god with brown curls’) and married him at St.
Margaret’s Westminister, 1931 - Pakenham accidentally arriving at
Westminster Abbey; converted to catholicism at his request; stood for
Labour at Cheltenham, 1935; afterwards elected for King’s Norton,
Birmingham, being unlisted and resigning at her sixth pregnancy, 1944;
stood for Oxford, 1950; wrote column on parenthood for Beaverbrook, 1950s;
issued Jameson’s Raid: The Prelude to the Boer War (1960),
and life of Victoria RI (1964), winner of James Tait Black Award;
2-vol. biography of Wellington (1969-72), also a life of Churchill (1974); The Pilgrim of Passion (1979), a life of Wilfrid Scawen
Blunt; also a history of the house of Windsor (1976); a study of Byron’s
Greece (1976); Eminent Victorian Women (1981); lives of the Queen
(1983) and the Queen Mother (1881); issued an autobiography as The
Pebbled Shore (1986); among her children are Thomas Pakenham, Antonia
Fraser, Rachel Billington, and Judith Kazantzis; d. 23 Oct. 2002.
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Works
Jameson’s Raid (1960), reiss. as Jameson’s
Raid: The Prelude to the Boer War (1982, 1984); Royal Throne: The
Future of the Monarchy (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1993), 189pp.;
also introduction to Frances Makower & Joan Faber, eds., On the
Way Home: Reflections for Old Age Elizabeth Longford (1994), ill.
Margaret Tournour. Also Elizabeth Longford, ‘Lady Gregory and Wilfrid
Scawen Blunt’, in Ann Saddlemyer & Colin Smythe, eds., Lady
Gregory, Fifty Years After (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1987); ed.,
The Oxford Book of Royal Anecdotes (1989); Louisa, Lady in Waiting:
the personal diaries and albums of Louisa, Lady in Waiting to Queen Victoria
and Queen Alexandra (1979); The Pebbled Shore: The Memoirs of Elizabeth
Longford (NY: Alfred A. Knopf 1986), xii, 351 pp., 16pp. pls.;
Pilgrim of Passion (NY: Knopf 1979), 467pp., 49 ills.; Winston
Churchill (London: Sidgwick & Jackson 1974), 224pp.
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Criticism
Frances Makower, Elizabeth Longford (London: Hodder &
Stoughton 1997), xi, 212pp., [8]pp of pls.; obituary in Guardian Weekly
(31 Oct. 2002, p.23.)
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Notes
Guardian Weekly, obituary (31 Oct. 2002) cites Elizabeth
Longford ed. letters of Queen Victoria to her daughter Louise, or “Loosy”
(1991), poss. confused with Louisa, Lady in Waiting (1979).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)