Lady Cynthia Mosley

Lady Cynthia Blanche Mosley[n 1] (23 August 1898 – 16 May 1933), nicknamed "Cimmie", was a British politician of Anglo-American parentage and the first wife of the British Fascist and New Party politician Sir Oswald Mosley. She was a Member of Parliament in the Labour party.

Lady Cynthia Mosley
Oswald and Cynthia Mosley on their wedding day, 11 May 1920
Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent
In office 30 May 1929 – 27 October 1931
Preceded by	John Ward
Succeeded by	Ida Copeland
Personal details
Born	Cynthia Blanche Curzon (1898-08-13)13 August 1898 Kedleston, Derbyshire, England
Died	16 May 1933(1933-05-16) (aged 34) London, England
Cause of death	Peritonitis
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour Party (1924–1931) New Party (1931–1932)
Spouse(s)	Oswald Mosley ( m. 1920)
Children	Vivien Adam Nicholas Mosley, 3rd Baron Ravensdale Michael Mosley
Parents	George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston Mary Leiter
Relatives	Mary Curzon, 2nd Baroness Ravensdale (sister) Lady Alexandra Curzon (sister)

Childhood

Born Cynthia Blanche Curzon at Kedleston Hall, she was the second daughter of Hon. George Curzon (later Marquess Curzon of Kedleston) and his first wife, Mary Victoria Leiter, an American department-store heiress. As the daughter of an Earl (and later a Marquess), she was styled Lady Cynthia beginning in 1911.

Marriage and family

On 11 May 1920, Cynthia married the then-Conservative politician, Oswald Mosley. He was her first and only lover.[1]

They had three children:

• Vivien Elizabeth Mosley (25 February 1921 – 26 August 2002),[n 2] who on 15 January 1949 married Desmond Francis Forbes Adam (1926-1958) who was killed in a car crash nine years later[2]
  • and had issue[n 3]
• Nicholas Mosley, 3rd Baron Ravensdale (25 June 1923 – 28 February 2017), a successful novelist who wrote a biography of his father and edited his memoirs for publication;
  • and had issue[n 4]
• Michael Mosley (25 April 1932 – 13 March 2012), died unmarried and without issue.

Political life

Both Cynthia and Oswald Mosley joined the Labour Party in 1924. She was elected Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Stoke-on-Trent in 1929, her husband having been elected MP for Smethwick in 1926.[3] Frustrated with the ruling Labour Party's complacent and conservative response to high levels of unemployment, Oswald Mosley formed the New Party on 1 March 1931 which his wife also joined. The party failed to win any seats at the 1931 general election. After that Mosley started his move towards fascist policies, losing many of those who had joined the New Party as a result.

Husband's adultery

During their marriage, her younger sister, Lady Alexandra, was a mistress of Oswald Mosley, as was, briefly, their stepmother, Grace Curzon, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston.[4]

Electoral defeat and death

All the New Party's candidates in the 1931 election lost their seat or failed to win in constituencies, instead seeing a unified coalition government which involved the Conservatives, Liberals and a breakaway from the main Labour Party amid the Great Depression. Cynthia Mosley herself did not stand in the election. From then on she drifted away from her husband politically, having no sympathy for his move towards fascism. She died in 1933 at 34 after an operation for peritonitis following acute appendicitis, in London.[5]

Styles

• 23 August–20 October 1898: Miss Cynthia Blanche Curzon
• 20 October 1898 – 2 November 1911: The Hon. Cynthia Blanche Curzon
• 2 November 1911 – 11 May 1920: Lady Cynthia Blanche Curzon[6]
• 1928–30 May 1929: Lady Cynthia Blanche Mosley
• 30 May 1929 – 27 October 1931: Lady Cynthia Blanche Mosley MP
• 27 October 1931 – 16 May 1933: Lady Cynthia Blanche Mosley

Sources

• De Courcy Anne (2003) "The Viceroy's Daughters, The Lives of the Curzon Sisters", Harper Collins; ISBN 0-06-093557-X (biography); retrieved 14 March 2007[7]
• Mosley [8]
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lady Cynthia Mosley

Notes

1. See also Courtesy titles in the United Kingdom.
   As the wife of a baronet she was occasionally seen in records as Lady Mosley; however by preference always referred to as Lady Cynthia (when used in public with a surname, Curzon/Mosley), her own title as the daughter of a marquess.
2. b. 25 February 1921, d. 25 August 2002, aged 81. m. St-Martin-in-the-Fields, London, January, 1949, Desmond Francis Forbes Adam, the son of Colin Gurdon Forbes Adam, of Skipwith Hall, Selby, Chairman of Yorkshire Post Newspapers, by his wife, the former Hon. Irene Constance Lawley, daughter of the 3rd Lord Wenlock. Vivien's father, Sir Oswald, gave her in marriage at the ceremony. The couple had a son, Rupert, born in 1957, and two daughters, Cynthia, born in 1950, and Arabella, born in 1952. The marriage ended, 3 January 1958, when her husband was killed instantly in a road accident at Newark. He was 31, travelling from London to a family christening in Yorkshire, when a car, in which he was a passenger, collided with a lorry.[2]
3. One son and two daughters
4. Four sons and one daughter

References

1. N. Mosley, Rules of the game: Sir Oswald and Lady Cynthia Mosley, 1896-1933, Secker & Warburg (1982), pg. 247
2. de Courcy Anne (2003) "The Viceroy's Daughters, The Lives of the Curzon Sisters", Harper Collins; ISBN 0-06-093557-X (biography); retrieved 14 March 2007.
3. Cathy Hartley (2003). A Historical Dictionary of British Women. Psychology Press. pp. 325–. ISBN 978-1-85743-228-2.
4. N. Mosley, Rules of the game : Sir Oswald and Lady Cynthia Mosley, 1896-1933 (Secker & Warburg, 1982), p. 248
5. "Cynthia Mosley (1898 - 1933) - Find A Grave Memorial".
6. "No. 28547". The London Gazette. 3 November 1911. p. 7951.
7. Archipelago, World. "HarperCollins US".
8. "MMI Movie Review: Mosley".