This miniature portrait is signed on the reverse by Ida Frances Laidman (1893->1960) who was active around 1910-1915. On 10 February 1923 she sailed from Southampton to New York, giving her age as 34, occupation as artist - painter, and languages spoken as English, French, and German. Her home address was with her sister Miss C M Laidman of West Wards, Normansland, Surrey. The website showing the transcription of this record suggests she was born in India, although that has not been confirmed. She appears to have never married.
The sitter is identified as Hon. Margaret Buckmaster. Margaret Anna Buckmaster (1893-1929) and born in West Hampstead, London was the daughter of Stanley Owen Buckmaster, 1st Viscount Buckmasrer (1861-1934). On 22 Dec 1921 she married Dighton Nicholas Pollock (1864-1927), a practising barrister and a junior counsel to the Treasury. They had two sons.
There are three photographic portraits of her as Hon. Margaret Anna Pollock in the National Portrait Gallery, London. These were taken at the time of her wedding.
Her father, Viscount Buckmaster, was a Liberal politician and elevated to the peerage in 1915, as Baron Buckmaster to become Lord Chancellor in 1915-1916. In 1933 he was again elevated as Viscount Buckmaster. See Stanley Buckmaster, 1st Viscount Buckmaster - Wikipedia, the free ...
His elevation seems to have been a case of bumping him upstairs, as he was a controversial person in World War I. The official government Press Bureau was established on 7 Aug 1914, but quickly became known as the Sup-press Bureau. This was because the Army had persuaded the Government that the public should not be kept informed on the progress of the War. Thus the Press Bureau's staff of six naval officers, nine military officers, and nine clerks was far more concerned with the mutilation of war news proofs submitted by the newspapers than with providing adequate war news for the nation. Then, after military reverses in 1914, Sir Stanley Buckmaster was appointed as the new Director of the Press Bureau. There were some improvements, but still two schools of "Tell the Truth" and "Hide the Truth", with Sir Stanley in the latter school.
Hints of bad news withheld by the censors began to leak out and the Government was forced to concede reforms in the Press Bureau. The "Times" described him as "one of the leading lights of the pacifist-defeatist cabal". See R.E. Escouflaire. Ireland, an Enemy of the Allies? 1920.Chapters 6-7. As a result, Sir Stanley was removed from the post and elevated to the House of Lords. For much more detail on this see War Reporters
After WWI, Lord Buckmaster was critical of the Treaty of Versailles, when in 1922 he stated: " to induce any nation, however evil and abominable they might be, to lay down their arms on one set of terms, and then, when they were defenceless, to another set, is an act of dishonour which can never be effaced."
Margaret's brother, Owen Stanley Buckmaster (1890-1974), 2nd Viscount Buckmaster was a World War II appeaser in favour of a negotiated peace with Germany. See Lobster: The Journal of Parapolitics In 1969 he wrote an autobiography titled "Roundabout". Given his involvement with appeasement, it seems quite possible he was the model for the fictional character Lord Darlington in the successful book and film about appeasement, titled "Remains of the Day". 675
No comments:
Post a Comment