When Deborah Cavendish,​ duchess of Devonshire, died at the age of 94 in September 2014, the obituary headlines rang the changes on ‘the end of an era’ and ‘the last of the Mitford sisters’. If the first was true, the second was not. It sometimes feels as if we shall never hear the last of the Mitfords. What Jessica, one of Deborah Devonshire’s older siblings, called ‘the Mitford Industry’ has powered on in spite of the absence of its principals (and in some cases because of it), refuelled by access to new material and a reduced fear of libel. Of the seven children of David and Sydney, Lord and Lady Redesdale, six were girls; the Mitford industry revolves, lighthouse-like, between them. Nancy, the novelist, wit and Bright Young Thing, comes to prominence whenever her books are dramatised; Unity and Diana, the Nazis, are subjects for studies of British upper-class fascism; Debo, as she was always known, the châtelaine of Chatsworth, attracts the interest of architectural historians and fans of the aristocracy; Jessica, known as Decca, is the communist. Pamela, once satirised in Private Eye as ‘Doreen: the unknown Mitford sister’, was the only one never to make international news, her lesbianism causing no more than a local disturbance. They were all monsters, sacred monsters at times, but monstrous nonetheless in the sheer scale of their lives and characters and in the self-belief that propelled what might have been, in smaller personalities, merely enthusiasms or inclinations onto the world stage. Lady Redesdale said that whenever she saw a headline beginning ‘Peer’s Daughter …’ she knew it would be one of hers. They started the industry themselves. Nancy’s novel The Pursuit of Love (1945) gave a witty account of family life which was less exaggerated than most readers must have imagined, and Decca’s memoir Hons and Rebels (1960) was an instant bestseller. The Times found it ‘extremely funny’; her sisters, without exception, hated it. The growing numbers of Mitfordi...
First seen: 2026-02-02 00:31
Last seen: 2026-02-02 05:32