Edith Teresa Hulton, Lady Berwick (1890-1972) in Fancy Dress
Unknown
Category
Photographs
Date
circa 1930
Materials
Photographic paper, cardboard, gilt and glass
Measurements
265 x 208 mm
Place of origin
Shrewsbury
Order this imageCollection
Attingham Park, Shropshire
NT 609150
Summary
Photograph, black and white, Edith Teresa Hulton, Lady Berwick (1890-1972) in Fancy Dress by unknown photographer. Full length portrait, turned slightly to the left. In medieval costume, wearing long gown, cloak and headdress with coronet. Against a black background. Circa 1930. Edith Teresa Hulton was the daughter of William Stokes Hulton (1852-1921) and Costanza Mazini (1863–1939); married Thomas Henry Noel-Hill, 8th Baron Berwick of Attingham (1877-1947) on 30 June 1919.
Full description
Merlin Waterson, “Lady Berwick, Attingham and Italy” National Trust Studies 1981, pp.43-68: “…It was in Asolo that Lady Berwick was born on August 6th 1890. Her parents had lived in Italy since their marriage in 1886. William Hulton, the son of a parson, was a serious but struggling painter; Costanza was half Italian for her mother, Linda, was the daughter of James White, a textile merchant and Liberal MP for Brighton. Linda had married one of her father’s business colleagues, Vincenzo Mazini (a friend of the Italian patriot, Mazzini, but no relation), in 1861. The couple were about to move to Florence, when in 1869 Vicenzo died unexpectedly. The following year, after much painful indecision, his widow settled in Florence with her daughter Costanza, then aged seven. In 1876, she married again. Her second husband, Pasquale Villari, was a distinguished historian, and later a Senator. …Shortly after their marriage, William and Costanza Hulton moved to Venice and bought the two upper floors of the Palazzo Dona opposite SS.Giovanni e Paolo… When in May 1890, with Costanza expecting their second child, the Hultons decided to escape the summer heat of enice, Asolo was a convenient and obvious retreat… They took the Casa Bolzon with its large airy rooms and wide views over the plain and moved in with their sevants on May 22. …Although the Hulton family continued to use their house in Venice, they spent much of 1905 in Munich, where Teresa took intensive piano lessons with a view to becoming a professional musician. Her life was to a take a very different direction, however. After a distressing affaire de coeur which she subsequently preferred not to discuss, she gave up her musical studies entirely. During the First World War, she worked with the British Red Cross at Cervignano, close behind the foront line, and narrowly avoided capture after the disaster of Caporetto. In 1919 she received the Croce di Guerra. The same year she was married to Thomas, 8th Lord Berwick, in the English Church of S.Giorgio, Venice where she had been christened and confirmed. The service combined English liturgy with Venetian elegance. Teresa’s long journey to Attingham began in a gondola, a sight which the American critic Percy Lubbock recalled as the most beautiful he had ever seen. For somebody brought up in a Venetian palace visited by some of the greatest writers and painters in Europe, it cannot have been easy to adapt to life in Shropshire. Most of her neighbours preferred chasing foxes to cultural pursuits. Initially, the Berwicks lived at Cronkhill, Nash’s Italianate villa built in 1805 for an agent of the Attingham Estate, with its Claudean view across the wide meanders of the Severn to the Wrekin. But Lord Berwick quickly found that his young wife had all the knowledge and artistic sense to be the perfect custodian of Attingham itself. ..It was a sadly neglected house to which Lady Berwick now devoted herself; but one which she saw was all the more interesting for having escaped the attentions of late Victorian and Edwardian decorators. …[Walter] Sickert… suggest[ed]..he should paint portraits of Lady Berwick and Gioconda Hulton. Sittings for these were arranged in London in the autumn of 1933. .. Lady Berwick was not unduly surprised that Sickert was at that period working largely from photographs. Sir Gerald Kelly had adopted a similar procedure when he painted her portrait in 1923, although he paid three visits to Attingham that year to make studies. … …Lord Berwick’s health was no longer good and neither were the prospects for the preservation of the house.. In May of that year, she arranged to meet the Historic Buildings Secretary of the National Trust to discuss the possible transfer of Attingham, and in July he visited the house to explain what would be involved to Lord Berwick. In his accounts of those meetings, James Lees-Milne makes quite clear that, but for Lady Berwick, Attingham Park and the Atingham estate of 4,000 acres would almost certainly not be National Trust property today. After Her husband’s death in 1947, she decided against moving to Cronkhill, as earlier planned. She had intended that Gioconda should share a house with her; but that hope was dashed by her sister’s tragic death in 1940 in a road accident. Instead, Lady Berwick chose for herself the role of the National Trust’s most meticulous curator and custodian. Her position at Attingham…was not an easy one; yet for twenty-five years her presence enriched the life of the house immeasurably… Like her sister, she died in a motor accident, on an autumn night in 1972, at the gates of Attingham That evening she had given what she said would have to be her last party, for the sons and daughters of all the Attingham tenants…”
Provenance
Lady Berwick collection; bequeathed to the National Trust by Edith Teresa Hulton, Lady Berwick (1890-1972).
Marks and inscriptions
...W.G.Cross and Sons Ltd 70 Mardol, Shrewsbury... (framer's label on reverse)
Makers and roles
Unknown, photographer W.G.Cross and Sons Ltd, framemaker