George Francis Child-Villiers, 9th Earl of Jersey (15 February 1910 – 9 August 1998), was an English peer and banker from the Villiers family. Lord Jersey gave one of the family seats, Osterley Park, to the British nation in the late 1940s.
Early life
He was the son of George Child-Villiers, 8th Earl of Jersey, and the former Lady Cynthia Almina Constance Mary Needham. He had three younger siblings, Lady Joan Child Villiers (wife of David Colville),[1] Edward Mansel Child Villiers (who married Barbara Mary Frampton and, secondly, to Princess Maria Gloria Pignatelli Aragona Cortez, only daughter of Prince Antonia Pignatelli Aragona Cortez, Duke of Terranova), and Lady Ann Child Villiers (the wife of Maj. Alexander Henry Elliot).[2]
The 9th Earl was responsible for the remodelling of the family seat, Middleton Park in Oxfordshire, and employed Edwin Lutyens as an architect. When he tried to give Middleton to the National Trust, they refused on the grounds that the house had been remodelled by Lutyens – whose houses they now seek particularly. The 9th Earl gave Osterley Park in Hounslow to the nation in the late 1940s; he said of that house, "it took a trained staff of 12 to bring me a boiled egg in the morning, and the egg was always cold by the time it got to me!"[5]
Personal life
Monument of the 9th Earl of Jersey, showing the family's current arms
Lord Jersey was married three times and twice divorced. He married his first wife, Patricia Richards (1914–2017) at St Margaret's, Westminster on 12 January 1932. She was the only child of Kenneth Richards, of Cowcumbala, New South Wales, Australia.[6] Before the Countess obtained a divorce from him in London in 1937,[7] they were the parents of one child:[2]
A week after his divorce was finalized, Lord Jersey married American actress Virginia Cherrill on 30 July 1937 at the Chelsea Register Office. She was the ex-wife of actor Cary Grant and daughter of James E. Cherrill.[9][10] They divorced in 1946 without having had children together.[2] She later married Florian Martini, a World War II flying ace, before her death in 1996.[11]
His third and last wife was Bianca Luciana Adriana Mottironi (d. 2005), whom he married on 16 October 1947.[12] She was the eldest daughter of furniture maker Enrico Mottironi of Via Goffredo Casalis in Turin, Italy. They had three children:[2]
George Henry Child Villiers, Viscount Villiers (1948–1998), who married on 22 December 1969 Verna P. Stott; divorced 1973, with children. Married on 9 January 1974 Sacha Jane Hooper Valpy; divorced 1988, with children. Married in 1992 Stephanie Louisa Penman, with children.
Lady Isabel Bianca Rosa Child-Villiers (b. 1950), married Peter Edward Harrison in 1974.
Hon. Charles Victor Child-Villiers (1952–1991), married Brigitte Elisabeth Germaine Marchand, in 1975. They divorced in 1989,[13] before he lost his hearing suddenly and died in 1991, aged just 39.
Lord Jersey moved to Radier Manor in Jersey, where he lived with his third wife until his death on 9 August 1998. As his eldest son George died of a heart attack on 19 March 1998, several months before the Earl's death, his grandson, William, succeeded as the 10th Earl. His widow, the dowager Countess of Jersey, died in March 2005.[2]
Official notice of the Royal Warrant dated 5 June 2000, published 18 September 2000 in the London Gazette for the elevation in rank, style, and precedence of the 10th Earl's three sisters, but not his half-brother.
