Jean, Lady Hamilton, 1861-1941: Diaries of A Soldier's Wife

by Celia Lee

Overview

“A pleasure to read. It’s predominantly about the life of Jean Hamilton’s husband Ian as an officer during the Great War and life for both before and after.” —UK Historian

Jean, Lady Hamilton’s diaries remained forgotten and hidden in the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London, for fifty years. The story begins with the young couples’ wedding, a dazzling bride, Jean Muir, marrying a star-struck Major Ian Hamilton. The daughter of the millionaire businessman Sir John Muir, Jean had all the money whilst Hamilton was penniless.

Having spent their early married years in India, the Hamiltons returned and set up house in the prestigious Hyde Park area of London, also eventually buying Lullenden Manor, East Grinstead, that they purchased as a country home from Winston Churchill when he could no longer afford it. Churchill in particular was like family in the Hamiltons’ home; he used to go there and practice his speeches, and painted alongside Jean to whom he sold his first painting.

Jean chronicled Ian’s long army career that culminated in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. The failure there ended her husband’s distinguished career and almost ended Churchill’s as he had to leave his job as First Lord of the Admiralty.

This account is Lady Hamilton’s “attempt to chronicle her husband’s life as a top-flight but penniless soldier, this at a time when young Winston Churchill . . . was emerging from his own distinguished and very colourful military career to enter a life of politics . . . Jean Hamilton is one of those larger than life people of whom we know very little until a book such as Celia’s comes along” (Books Monthly).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526786593
Publisher:	Pen and Sword
Publication date:	12/14/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Celia Lee is an author and historian.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vi

List of Illustrations ix

Foreword xi

Preface xiii

Chapter 1 A Whirlwind Romance 1

Chapter 2 A Soldier's Wife 14

Chapter 3 Edwardian High Society 37

Chapter 4 Japan (1904-5) 61

Chapter 5 Tidworth (1905-8) 81

Chapter 6 Malta (1910-14) 107

Chapter 7 The Beginning of World War One (1914-15) 122

Chapter 8 Gallipoli: The Battle That Would Never End 136

Chapter 9 Lady Hamilton's Gallipoli Fund 165

Chapter 10 The Dardanelles Commission of Inquiry 172

Chapter 11 And Now the War is Over 209

Chapter 12 Love, Sex and Children 'Sweet Harry' - 'Dark Rosaleen' 221

Chapter 13 Jean: Artist and Poet 259

Chapter 14 Grand Ladies and Great Houses 284

Chapter 15 The Later Years 316

Chapter 16 The Last Romance 359

Postscript 368

Notes 371

Sources and Bibliography 378

Editorial Reviews

"Lee quotes extensively from her subject’s diaries to good effect."

A Blog on Winston Churchill

Celia Lee has an unrivalled knowledge of the invaluable and detailed diaries kept by Jean, Ian Hamilton’s wife, and has written a remarkable biography based on those intimate daily records of the life of a member of the Edwardian power elite.

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