Cicely Hilda Farmer

Cicely Hilda Farmer
Farmer in 1913
Born1870
One Tree Hill, Auckland, New Zealand
Died7 May 1955
Chelsea, London, England
NationalityBritish
OccupationNovelist
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1913; died 1921)​
Montagu Monier-Williams
​
​
(m. 1927; died 1931)​
RelativesBaden Powell (father-in-law)
Monier Monier-Williams (father-in-law)

Cicely Hilda Farmer (1870 – 7 May 1955) was a New Zealand-born British novelist and travel writer.

She was born in One Tree Hill, Auckland in 1870, the daughter of James and Julie Farmer.[1]

Warington Baden-Powell, founder of the Sea Scouts, came ashore in New Zealand when his father Prof Rev Baden Powell died, and retrained there as a lawyer specialising in maritime law.[1] He met Farmer in Auckland and they became secretly engaged in 1893.[1] Farmer was presented at court in London as a debutant in 1893, and returned to New Zealand, where she lived until she married in 1913.[1]

20 years after becoming engaged, she married Warington Baden-Powell at All Saints Church, Knightsbridge (now the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God and All Saints) on 13 September 1913.[2] Her wedding dress of white silk satin, made by Reville and Rossiter of Hanover Square, is in the permanent collection of the V&A in London.[2] Also included are the train, shoes (by C. Moykopf, Burlington Arcade), stocking, gloves and a headdress of white ostrich plumes for when it was worn for a May Court in 1914.[2]

Château Royal de Collioure in 2005, her home from 1927 to 1931

Baden-Powell died in 1921. In 1927 she married Montagu Sneade Faithfull Monier-Williams (1860–1931), British surgeon, expert figure skater and writer, a widower with two children, and the son of Monier Monier-Williams.[3][4][5] After the wedding they retired to an artistic commune at the Château Royal de Collioure in Collioure in the French Pyrenees close to the Spanish border, where he was a keen viticulturist.[5]

Artemis Weds was reviewed by The New York Times.[6]

In 1939, by deed poll, she renounced the surname Monier-Williams and was henceforth Cicely Hilda Baden-Powell again.[7] At the time, her address was Milden House, Dixwell Road, Folkestone, Kent.[7]

She died in Chelsea, London on 7 May 1955, and was buried in the Farmer family plot at St Andrews Cathedral's Eastern Cemetery, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, alongside her first husband.[8]

Publications

Novels

  • The Painted Show, 1924
  • Waters of Fayle, 1925
  • The Bending Sickle, William Morrow, New York, 1931
  • Anna, Faber and Faber, London, 1931
  • Artemis Weds, William Morrow, New York, 1932, dust jacket by Paul Wenck.[9]

Non-fiction

  • Dragons and a Bell, 1931 (about a trip through China, Malaysia, Burma, and Sri Lanka)
  • Sunrise Over India, Victor Gollancz, 1934 (another travel book)

References

  1. ^ a b c d Bird, Ron. "NZ SEA SCOUTS JOIN 100TH COMMEMORATION" (PDF). Professional Skipper. No. November/December 2009. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  2. ^ a b c "Wedding Dress 13 September 1913 (worn)". V&A. 13 September 1913. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  3. ^ "Monier-Williams, Montagu Sneade Faithfull, (1860–1931), physician and surgeon". National Archives. Retrieved 13 February 2024.
  4. ^ "Montagu Monier-Williams, The Doctor Who Treated Figure Skating". skateguard. Retrieved 13 February 2024.
  5. ^ a b "Obituary". BMJ. Vol. 2, no. 3681. 25 July 1931. p. 171. PMC 2315697. PMID 20776306.
  6. ^ WALLACE, MARGARET (17 July 1932). "English Society in the Years Since 1925; ARTEMIS WEDS. By Cicely Farmer. 314 pp. New York: William Morrow & Co. $2.50". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  7. ^ a b "London Gazette" (PDF). 17 March 1939. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  8. ^ "England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837–2007". familysearch.org. Retrieved 14 February 2024.
  9. ^ Salisbury, Martin (2017). The illustrated dust jacket, 1920–1970. London. pp. 186–187. ISBN 9780500519134. Retrieved 6 February 2024.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)