Lady Rosemary Leveson Gower

The life and times of Lady Rosemary Millicent Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (1893–1930), Viscountess Ednam

The heartbreaking tale of Lady Rosemary Leveson-Gower, ( 1893-1930), a Society beauty, the daughter of a Scottish Duke, who dazzled Edward, Prince of Wales before Freda Dudley Ward and Wallis Simpson, his better known mistresses. The Prince’s family scoffed at Rosemary’s chequered family pedigree and dismissed the love-weary Prince’s designs, leaving Rosemary, a heroic Red Cross nurse during the Great War, to be swept into marriage by Eric, Viscount Ednam, a close friend of Edward, and heir to an ancient English Earldom. The Ednams became a dynamic couple of the Bright Young Things era of the 1920s, but in July, 1930 at the peak of their chaotic life together, Rosemary met her sudden death in a horrific aeroplane crash, which also killed three of her fellow aristocrats. The unexplained accident (which remains unsolved even today) caused giant ripples across the whole of British Society. Rumours were rife of sabotage, especially as it was said that Edward, Prince of Wales, had only just escaped death in the same crash by changing his travel plans at the last minute. Will Cross (author of several biographies on the British gentry) unravels Rosemary’s life and times and offers some startling and sinister facts about the aftermath of her tragic death. An illustrated talk. Will Cross is working on a book about Rosemary and her brother Alistair ( who also died mysteriously). Both Rosemary and Alastair Leveson-Gower were friends of Gwyneth Morgan, the wayward daughter of Courtenay, Lord Tredegar. This is another largely untold Society tale that raises disturbing issues, even now, over eighty years on.

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