Lady Otteline Morrell 1873 – 1938 – Literary Hostess and Patron of the Arts lived here – 10 Gower Street, Westminster, London WC1
Image by Bolckow
10 Gower Street, Bloomsbury, London, WC1E 6DP
Westminster 1984
www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/lady-ottol…
"Lady Ottoline Violet Anne Morrell (16 June 1873 – 21 April 1938) was an English aristocrat and society hostess. Her patronage was influential in artistic and intellectual circles, where she befriended writers such as Aldous Huxley, Siegfried Sassoon, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, and some critics consider her the inspiration for Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley. Ottoline Morrell wrote two volumes of memoirs, but these were edited and revised after her death, losing a little of their charm and much of their intimate detail in that process. She also maintained detailed journals, over a period of twenty years, which remain unpublished. Born Ottoline Violet Anne Cavendish-Bentinck, she was the daughter of Lieutenant-General Arthur Cavendish-Bentinck and his wife, the former Augusta Mary Elizabeth Browne, later created Baroness Bolsover. Ottoline was granted the rank of a daughter of a duke with the courtesy title of "Lady" when her half-brother William succeeded to the Dukedom of Portland in 1879, at which time the family moved into Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire. Morrell was known to have many lovers. Her first love affair was with an older man, the doctor and writer Axel Munthe, but she rejected his impulsive proposal of marriage because her spiritual beliefs were incompatible with his atheism. In 1902, she married the MP Philip Morrell, with whom she shared a passion for art and a strong interest in Liberal politics. They shared what would now be known as an open marriage for the rest of their lives. Philip’s extramarital affairs produced several children who were cared for by his wife, who also struggled to conceal evidence of his mental instability. Her lovers may have included the philosopher Bertrand Russell, the writer Dorothy Bussy, the painters Augustus John, and Henry Lamb, the artist Dora Carrington, the art historian Roger Fry, and in her later years, there was even a brief affair with a gardener, Lionel Gomme, who was employed at Garsington Manor, Oxfordshire . Lady Ottoline and her husband, Philip Morrell, bought the manor house in 1914, at which time it was in a state of disrepair, having been in use as a farmhouse. They completely restored the house in the 1920s, working with the architect Philip Tilden, and creating landscaped Italian-style gardens. In 1928 she was diagnosed with cancer, which resulted in a long hospitalization and the removal of her lower teeth and part of her jaw. After her death in 1938, the British sculptor Eric Gill, was commissioned with her memorial monument, which can still be seen today in the parish church of St Mary, Garsington."
