Jocelyn Stevens

Sir Jocelyn Stevens
CVO
Born
Jocelyn Edward Greville Stevens

(1932-02-14)14 February 1932
Marylebone, London, England
Died9 October 2014(2014-10-09) (aged 82)
Occupation(s)Magazine publisher, newspaper executive
Spouse(s)Jane Armyne Sheffield
(1956–1979)
Emma Cheape (2008–2014)
Partner(s)Vivien Duffield
(1973–2005)
Children4
RelativesEdward Hulton (great-grandfather)
Sir Edward Hulton, 1st Baronet (grandfather)
Sir Edward George Warris Hulton (uncle)
Poppy Delevingne (granddaughter)
Cara Delevingne (granddaughter)

Sir Jocelyn Edward Greville Stevens, CVO (14 February 1932 – 9 October 2014) was the British publisher of Queen magazine, then a London newspaper executive, and later the chairman of English Heritage.[1]

Education and career

Stevens attended Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge,[2][3] and Sandhurst, where he won the Sword of Honour. He went on to do national service in the Rifle Brigade.[4][5][6]

He built a career in journalism and publishing.[4][7] In 1957, he bought the British high society publication The Queen,[5] which he revamped, renaming it Queen and hiring Beatrix Miller as editor.[8][9] He hired Mark Boxer as art director and Antony Armstrong-Jones, future husband of Princess Margaret, as photographer.[10]

In the 1960s, he provided financial backing for the first British pirate radio station Radio Caroline.[11] In the 1960s–1970s, he was named as managing director of the Evening Standard and Daily Express newspapers.[4] A British newspaper obituary observed that, in the course of his newspaper career, Stevens "revelled in his image as a posh bully, living up, or down, to Private Eye's nickname for him: 'Piranha teeth.'"[1]

Stevens was Rector of the Royal College of Art from 1984 to 1992[1] and then Chairman of English Heritage from 1992 to 2000.[5][7][12] In 1992, he was awarded a CVO for his part in curating the Sovereign Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and he was knighted in 1996.[4][13][14][15]

Family

Stevens was born in Marylebone, Central London, England. He was son of Major Charles Greville Bartlett Stevens ("Stewart-Stevens" following his second marriage, to Muriel Stewart, 10th Lady of Balnakeilly, Pitlochry, Perthshire, Scotland) and his first wife Elizabeth ("Betty"), daughter of Sir Edward Hulton, 1st Baronet and his second wife, the music hall artist, actress and singer Millie Lindon.[7][9][16][17] Betty died shortly after her son's birth.[2][5][18][19][20] His father blamed Stevens for his mother's death, and the child was left in a flat near to Baker Street in London, attended to by nannies, a maid, a cook, a priest and a chauffeur.[21]

He was maternal nephew of the magazine publisher Sir Edward George Warris Hulton. His step-brother was the military officer Sir Blair Stewart-Wilson, Equerry to Her Majesty The Queen and Deputy Master of the Household in the Royal Household from 1976 to 1994.[22][10] His step-sister Prudence, Lady Penn (née Stewart-Wilson), was a Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and the wife of the former Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain's Office, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Eric Penn.[23][24][25]

He was married to Jane Armyne Sheffield, daughter of John Vincent Sheffield and wife Ann Margaret Faudel-Phillips, paternal granddaughter of the 6th Baronet Sheffield and maternal granddaughter of the 3rd and last of the Faudel-Phillips baronets, and a Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Margaret,[26][27] for 23 years until 1979.[3][5] They had four children, two sons and two daughters.[2][5] Their daughter Pandora married property developer Charles Delevingne and they have three daughters, Chloe, and models Poppy Delevingne and Cara Delevingne.[28] Stevens was a long-term partner of the philanthropist Dame Vivien Duffield until they separated in 2005.[2][29]

In 2008, he married Emma Margaret Ismay Cheape, daughter of the late Sir Iain Tennant and former wife of Angus Ismay Cheape.[30]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Sir Jocelyn Stevens obituary". The Guardian. 14 October 2014. Retrieved 15 October 2014. Jocelyn Edward Greville Stevens, publisher, born 14 February 1932; died 9 October 2014
  2. ^ a b c d Greenstreet, Rosanna (4 February 1996). "How We Met – Jocelyn Stevens and John Hedgecoe". The Independent. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
  3. ^ a b Stevens, Jocelyn (11 February 2002). "Margaret, Tony and me". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 30 August 2013.
  4. ^ a b c d "Sir Jocelyn Stevens, CVO Authorised Biography". Debrett's. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Farndale, Nigel (24 October 1998). "A hard man to like". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 28 August 2013. When his mother, Betty, went into labour with him there were dangerous complications. The child lived but she died a few days later ... He had four children, two boys and two girls. One of them, Rupert, was disabled with palsy and died at the age of 22 in 1989. Alt URL Archived 21 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ "No. 39306". The London Gazette (Supplement). 10 August 1951. p. 4257.
  7. ^ a b c Bennett, Will (27 October 1992). "Dictatorial approach by Stevens that rarely leaves feathers unruffled". The Independent. Archived from the original on 9 June 2022. Retrieved 27 August 2013. For much of his life, those jobs were in journalism. His mother was a member of the Hulton Press dynasty from which he inherited an enthusiasm for the printed word and a pounds 1m fortune.
  8. ^ Haden-Guest, Anthony (12 February 2006). "The queen is dead". The Observer. Retrieved 27 August 2013. Jocelyn Stevens, who had inherited a small fortune, was the nephew of Edward Hulton, publisher of Picture Post. Stevens bought Queen as a 25th birthday present for himself, on 15 February 1957.
  9. ^ a b Gundle, Stephen (2008). Glamour: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199210985. The Queen was a house magazine of the British landed and moneyed classes that was bought in 1957 by Jocelyn Stevens. Nephew of Edward Hulton, the publisher of Britain's post-war illustrated weekly, Picture Post, Stevens gradually reinvented the magazine.
  10. ^ a b "Sir Jocelyn Stevens (obituary)". The Telegraph (UK). Archived from the original on 13 October 2014. Retrieved 24 November 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  11. ^ Briggs, Asa (2000). The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Volume V: Competition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 511–512. ISBN 9780192159649. Radio Caroline, after taking over Radio Atlanta, split in the spring of 1964 into two services, North and South. MV Caroline was then moored off Ramsey in the Isle of Man, and Mi Amigo off Frinton. They were to be backed by the publisher Jocelyn Stevens.
  12. ^ "New Chairman of English Heritage: Sir Neil Cossons" (Press release). English Heritage. 2000. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
  13. ^ Lister, David (31 December 1992). "New Year Honours: Knighthood for Frost amid arts world accolades". The Independent. Archived from the original on 9 June 2022. Retrieved 31 August 2013.
  14. ^ "No. 53153". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 1992. p. 4.
  15. ^ "No. 54537". The London Gazette. 27 September 1996. p. 12875.
  16. ^ Baker, Richard Anthony (25 October 2005). "Music hall of fame – Millie Lindon". The Stage.co.uk. Retrieved 26 August 2013. Millie then married the Manchester newspaper magnate Sir Edward Hulton, who founded The Daily Sketch, bought and enlarged the London Evening Standard and then sold his empire to Lord Beaverbrook for £6 million. They had two children – a daughter who died at the age of 22, and a son, Edward George Warris [sic].
  17. ^ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage 2003, vol. 3, p. 3593
  18. ^ "FreeBMD – Search". Retrieved 26 August 2013. Marriages Jun 1931 – Surname: Hulton/Stevens, Given Name: Frances M/Charles G B, District: St. Martin, Volume: 1a, Page: 1214
  19. ^ "FreeBMD – Search". Retrieved 26 August 2013. Births Jun 1932 – Surname: Stevens, Given Name: Jocelyn E G, Mother: Hulton, District: Marylebone, Volume: 1a, Page: 594
  20. ^ "FreeBMD – Search". Retrieved 26 August 2013. Deaths Mar 1932 – Surname: Stevens, Given Name: Frances M, Age: 22, District: Marylebone, Volume: 1a, Page: 776
  21. ^ Bates, Steven (14 October 2014). "Sir Jocelyn Stevens obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  22. ^ Tomlinson, Richard (20 December 1992). "They also serve, who only ush". The Independent. Archived from the original on 9 June 2022.
  23. ^ "No. 56653". The London Gazette (Supplement). 6 August 2002. p. 1. "L.V.O. – Prudence Hilary, Lady PENN, formerly Lady in Waiting to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother."
  24. ^ "Queen attends Victorian girl's wedding". The Argus (Melbourne, Victoria). 5 February 1947. Retrieved 30 August 2013. The Queen and Princess Elizabeth attended the wedding of Australian Prudence Stewart-Wilson when she was married at St Mark's, North Audley st, to Major Eric Penn, MC, Grenadier Guards, nephew and ward of Major Arthur Penn, secretary to the Queen ... Given away by her stepfather, Major G. Stewart-Stevens
  25. ^ "Eric Penn, 77, Director of British Royal Pomp". The New York Times. 17 May 1993. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
  26. ^ "He's the New Style British Tycoon". The Sydney Morning Herald. 4 September 1960. Retrieved 29 August 2013. Five years ago he married Jane Sheffield.
  27. ^ "No. 45044". The London Gazette. 17 February 1970. p. 1967.
  28. ^ Waite, Alicia (16 March 2011). "Model siblings: Poppy and Cara Delevingne". The Telegraph. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
  29. ^ Anthony, Andrew (27 March 2011). "Vivien Duffield: The woman who thinks it's better to give". The Observer. Retrieved 29 August 2013. They became a couple in 1973 and, although they never married, they stayed together for 32 tempestuous years, until he left for a younger woman.
  30. ^ "Interview: New SFE chairman is just the man to burnish finance's tarnished image". The Scotsman. 31 July 2009. Retrieved 29 August 2013. His father was Sir Iain Tennant ... His sister Emma Cheape was at the heart of a society scandal when she married publishing heir Sir Jocelyn Stevens, for whom he abandoned his long-term partner, Selfridges heiress Dame Vivien Duffield. Interview with Mark Tennant.