Laura was the second wife of novelist Evelyn Waugh, whose brief first marriage to Evelyn Gardner on 27 June, 1928 ended a year later and was annulled in 1936, permitting Waugh, a Catholic convert and Laura, a member of a long-time Catholic aristocratic family, to be married in the Catholic church.
Born Laura Laetitia Gwendolen Evelyn Herbert, Laura was the daughter of Hon. Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert and Hon. Mary Gertrude Vesey, and the grand-daughter of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon. Laura was raised at Pixton Park, a manor estate in Dulverton, Somerset. She was married to Evelyn Waugh on April 17, 1937 at Church of the Assumption, Warwick Street, London, England. Source: The Peerage (www.thepeerage.com).
Laura and Evelyn had seven children, six of whom survived. Their home was Combe Florey house, in the village of Combe Florey, Taunton Deane Borough, Somerset.
************
EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER. Old Series, Vol. 10, no. 1, Spring 1976.
We were unaware of Laura Waugh's death until we saw this sad event mentioned, without date, in the [Christopher] Sykes biography [of Evelyn Waugh]. We, therefore, asked Auberon Waugh to give us some basic information to share with the EWN. He kindly furnished us with the following facts.
Laura Waugh died on June 17, 1973 of pneumonia after a short illness. No obituaries were published because Mrs. Waugh was "an intensely private person who neither sought nor welcomed attention." A brief announcement appeared only in The Times.
A Requiem Mass was said by the Rev. Philip Caraman, S.J, at Taunton, and she was buried at Combe Florey on June 20, 1973, which would have been her fifty-eighth birthday. "She was born the youngest daughter of Lt. Col. the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., and spent her childhood in Somerset, close to where she later came to live at Combe Florey." [Retrieved online 16 Oct. 2014.]
*************
From Brooke Allen's review of Evelyn Waugh: A Biography, by Selina Hastings (The New Criterion, Mar. 1995):
As one of her daughters later said, "Mummy had a very strong character, but very suppressed. Everything was very suppressed with Mummy." Laura Herbert, the third child of an ancient family recently converted to Catholicism, was brought up in the country and was exclusively interested in country pursuits; when she married the thirty-four-year-old Waugh at the age of nineteen she had virtually no experience of life outside of her own protective, eccentric family circle (the chaotic Herbert house is the model for Boot Magna in Scoop). Married women of her class usually had some life of their own, some circle of friends independent of their husbands, but, as Hastings writes, for Laura "there was never to be much chance of that." Evelyn's tremendous, violent, lowering personality took up most of the available oxygen, and Laura found her defense in withdrawal. She avoided Evelyn's smart London friends, refused to accompany him on his junkets to the city, and became a passionate farmer on a small scale, lavishing affection on her little herd of cows. She loved them, her son Auberon wrote, "extravagantly, as other women love their dogs or, so I have been told, their children." Though Laura certainly possessed a steely quality of self-preservation-- "She could be surprisingly judgmental, and to some observers there was a quiet arrogance about her, often a slight curl to her lip"--Hastings's account gives occasional, harrowing glimpses of deep unhappiness.
***************
Auberon Waugh's son Alexander gives a more nuanced and compelling picture of his grandmother Laura:
"I cannot easily explain how Granny, who was so strangely detached from the world and all the people in it, came to be loved so passionately by those who knew her -- but that was how it was. Anthony Powell described her as 'extremely dim to put it mildly', but he hardly knew her and his reckoning was erroneous. She was clever in many ways -- much cleverer in some than Powell. I am sure she could have completed The Times crossword in the time it took him to digest the first clue, but she was no show-off. Papa believed her to have been more remarkable than his father, and felt her death more deeply than his. Her humour was warm and her personality gentle. She was companionable. I particularly liked the smell that attached to all her jerseys -- sherry, French cigarettes and dog baskets all blended into one, a lovely Granny fragrance. " (Alexander Waugh, Fathers and Sons : the Autobiography of a Family, 2004, p. 427.)
Born Laura Laetitia Gwendolen Evelyn Herbert, Laura was the daughter of Hon. Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert and Hon. Mary Gertrude Vesey, and the grand-daughter of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon. Laura was raised at Pixton Park, a manor estate in Dulverton, Somerset. She was married to Evelyn Waugh on April 17, 1937 at Church of the Assumption, Warwick Street, London, England. Source: The Peerage (www.thepeerage.com).
Laura and Evelyn had seven children, six of whom survived. Their home was Combe Florey house, in the village of Combe Florey, Taunton Deane Borough, Somerset.
************
EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER. Old Series, Vol. 10, no. 1, Spring 1976.
We were unaware of Laura Waugh's death until we saw this sad event mentioned, without date, in the [Christopher] Sykes biography [of Evelyn Waugh]. We, therefore, asked Auberon Waugh to give us some basic information to share with the EWN. He kindly furnished us with the following facts.
Laura Waugh died on June 17, 1973 of pneumonia after a short illness. No obituaries were published because Mrs. Waugh was "an intensely private person who neither sought nor welcomed attention." A brief announcement appeared only in The Times.
A Requiem Mass was said by the Rev. Philip Caraman, S.J, at Taunton, and she was buried at Combe Florey on June 20, 1973, which would have been her fifty-eighth birthday. "She was born the youngest daughter of Lt. Col. the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., and spent her childhood in Somerset, close to where she later came to live at Combe Florey." [Retrieved online 16 Oct. 2014.]
*************
From Brooke Allen's review of Evelyn Waugh: A Biography, by Selina Hastings (The New Criterion, Mar. 1995):
As one of her daughters later said, "Mummy had a very strong character, but very suppressed. Everything was very suppressed with Mummy." Laura Herbert, the third child of an ancient family recently converted to Catholicism, was brought up in the country and was exclusively interested in country pursuits; when she married the thirty-four-year-old Waugh at the age of nineteen she had virtually no experience of life outside of her own protective, eccentric family circle (the chaotic Herbert house is the model for Boot Magna in Scoop). Married women of her class usually had some life of their own, some circle of friends independent of their husbands, but, as Hastings writes, for Laura "there was never to be much chance of that." Evelyn's tremendous, violent, lowering personality took up most of the available oxygen, and Laura found her defense in withdrawal. She avoided Evelyn's smart London friends, refused to accompany him on his junkets to the city, and became a passionate farmer on a small scale, lavishing affection on her little herd of cows. She loved them, her son Auberon wrote, "extravagantly, as other women love their dogs or, so I have been told, their children." Though Laura certainly possessed a steely quality of self-preservation-- "She could be surprisingly judgmental, and to some observers there was a quiet arrogance about her, often a slight curl to her lip"--Hastings's account gives occasional, harrowing glimpses of deep unhappiness.
***************
Auberon Waugh's son Alexander gives a more nuanced and compelling picture of his grandmother Laura:
"I cannot easily explain how Granny, who was so strangely detached from the world and all the people in it, came to be loved so passionately by those who knew her -- but that was how it was. Anthony Powell described her as 'extremely dim to put it mildly', but he hardly knew her and his reckoning was erroneous. She was clever in many ways -- much cleverer in some than Powell. I am sure she could have completed The Times crossword in the time it took him to digest the first clue, but she was no show-off. Papa believed her to have been more remarkable than his father, and felt her death more deeply than his. Her humour was warm and her personality gentle. She was companionable. I particularly liked the smell that attached to all her jerseys -- sherry, French cigarettes and dog baskets all blended into one, a lovely Granny fragrance. " (Alexander Waugh, Fathers and Sons : the Autobiography of a Family, 2004, p. 427.)
Laura was the second wife of novelist Evelyn Waugh, whose brief first marriage to Evelyn Gardner on 27 June, 1928 ended a year later and was annulled in 1936, permitting Waugh, a Catholic convert and Laura, a member of a long-time Catholic aristocratic family, to be married in the Catholic church.
Born Laura Laetitia Gwendolen Evelyn Herbert, Laura was the daughter of Hon. Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert and Hon. Mary Gertrude Vesey, and the grand-daughter of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon. Laura was raised at Pixton Park, a manor estate in Dulverton, Somerset. She was married to Evelyn Waugh on April 17, 1937 at Church of the Assumption, Warwick Street, London, England. Source: The Peerage (www.thepeerage.com).
Laura and Evelyn had seven children, six of whom survived. Their home was Combe Florey house, in the village of Combe Florey, Taunton Deane Borough, Somerset.
************
EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER. Old Series, Vol. 10, no. 1, Spring 1976.
We were unaware of Laura Waugh's death until we saw this sad event mentioned, without date, in the [Christopher] Sykes biography [of Evelyn Waugh]. We, therefore, asked Auberon Waugh to give us some basic information to share with the EWN. He kindly furnished us with the following facts.
Laura Waugh died on June 17, 1973 of pneumonia after a short illness. No obituaries were published because Mrs. Waugh was "an intensely private person who neither sought nor welcomed attention." A brief announcement appeared only in The Times.
A Requiem Mass was said by the Rev. Philip Caraman, S.J, at Taunton, and she was buried at Combe Florey on June 20, 1973, which would have been her fifty-eighth birthday. "She was born the youngest daughter of Lt. Col. the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., and spent her childhood in Somerset, close to where she later came to live at Combe Florey." [Retrieved online 16 Oct. 2014.]
*************
From Brooke Allen's review of Evelyn Waugh: A Biography, by Selina Hastings (The New Criterion, Mar. 1995):
As one of her daughters later said, "Mummy had a very strong character, but very suppressed. Everything was very suppressed with Mummy." Laura Herbert, the third child of an ancient family recently converted to Catholicism, was brought up in the country and was exclusively interested in country pursuits; when she married the thirty-four-year-old Waugh at the age of nineteen she had virtually no experience of life outside of her own protective, eccentric family circle (the chaotic Herbert house is the model for Boot Magna in Scoop). Married women of her class usually had some life of their own, some circle of friends independent of their husbands, but, as Hastings writes, for Laura "there was never to be much chance of that." Evelyn's tremendous, violent, lowering personality took up most of the available oxygen, and Laura found her defense in withdrawal. She avoided Evelyn's smart London friends, refused to accompany him on his junkets to the city, and became a passionate farmer on a small scale, lavishing affection on her little herd of cows. She loved them, her son Auberon wrote, "extravagantly, as other women love their dogs or, so I have been told, their children." Though Laura certainly possessed a steely quality of self-preservation-- "She could be surprisingly judgmental, and to some observers there was a quiet arrogance about her, often a slight curl to her lip"--Hastings's account gives occasional, harrowing glimpses of deep unhappiness.
***************
Auberon Waugh's son Alexander gives a more nuanced and compelling picture of his grandmother Laura:
"I cannot easily explain how Granny, who was so strangely detached from the world and all the people in it, came to be loved so passionately by those who knew her -- but that was how it was. Anthony Powell described her as 'extremely dim to put it mildly', but he hardly knew her and his reckoning was erroneous. She was clever in many ways -- much cleverer in some than Powell. I am sure she could have completed The Times crossword in the time it took him to digest the first clue, but she was no show-off. Papa believed her to have been more remarkable than his father, and felt her death more deeply than his. Her humour was warm and her personality gentle. She was companionable. I particularly liked the smell that attached to all her jerseys -- sherry, French cigarettes and dog baskets all blended into one, a lovely Granny fragrance. " (Alexander Waugh, Fathers and Sons : the Autobiography of a Family, 2004, p. 427.)
Born Laura Laetitia Gwendolen Evelyn Herbert, Laura was the daughter of Hon. Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert and Hon. Mary Gertrude Vesey, and the grand-daughter of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon. Laura was raised at Pixton Park, a manor estate in Dulverton, Somerset. She was married to Evelyn Waugh on April 17, 1937 at Church of the Assumption, Warwick Street, London, England. Source: The Peerage (www.thepeerage.com).
Laura and Evelyn had seven children, six of whom survived. Their home was Combe Florey house, in the village of Combe Florey, Taunton Deane Borough, Somerset.
************
EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER. Old Series, Vol. 10, no. 1, Spring 1976.
We were unaware of Laura Waugh's death until we saw this sad event mentioned, without date, in the [Christopher] Sykes biography [of Evelyn Waugh]. We, therefore, asked Auberon Waugh to give us some basic information to share with the EWN. He kindly furnished us with the following facts.
Laura Waugh died on June 17, 1973 of pneumonia after a short illness. No obituaries were published because Mrs. Waugh was "an intensely private person who neither sought nor welcomed attention." A brief announcement appeared only in The Times.
A Requiem Mass was said by the Rev. Philip Caraman, S.J, at Taunton, and she was buried at Combe Florey on June 20, 1973, which would have been her fifty-eighth birthday. "She was born the youngest daughter of Lt. Col. the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., and spent her childhood in Somerset, close to where she later came to live at Combe Florey." [Retrieved online 16 Oct. 2014.]
*************
From Brooke Allen's review of Evelyn Waugh: A Biography, by Selina Hastings (The New Criterion, Mar. 1995):
As one of her daughters later said, "Mummy had a very strong character, but very suppressed. Everything was very suppressed with Mummy." Laura Herbert, the third child of an ancient family recently converted to Catholicism, was brought up in the country and was exclusively interested in country pursuits; when she married the thirty-four-year-old Waugh at the age of nineteen she had virtually no experience of life outside of her own protective, eccentric family circle (the chaotic Herbert house is the model for Boot Magna in Scoop). Married women of her class usually had some life of their own, some circle of friends independent of their husbands, but, as Hastings writes, for Laura "there was never to be much chance of that." Evelyn's tremendous, violent, lowering personality took up most of the available oxygen, and Laura found her defense in withdrawal. She avoided Evelyn's smart London friends, refused to accompany him on his junkets to the city, and became a passionate farmer on a small scale, lavishing affection on her little herd of cows. She loved them, her son Auberon wrote, "extravagantly, as other women love their dogs or, so I have been told, their children." Though Laura certainly possessed a steely quality of self-preservation-- "She could be surprisingly judgmental, and to some observers there was a quiet arrogance about her, often a slight curl to her lip"--Hastings's account gives occasional, harrowing glimpses of deep unhappiness.
***************
Auberon Waugh's son Alexander gives a more nuanced and compelling picture of his grandmother Laura:
"I cannot easily explain how Granny, who was so strangely detached from the world and all the people in it, came to be loved so passionately by those who knew her -- but that was how it was. Anthony Powell described her as 'extremely dim to put it mildly', but he hardly knew her and his reckoning was erroneous. She was clever in many ways -- much cleverer in some than Powell. I am sure she could have completed The Times crossword in the time it took him to digest the first clue, but she was no show-off. Papa believed her to have been more remarkable than his father, and felt her death more deeply than his. Her humour was warm and her personality gentle. She was companionable. I particularly liked the smell that attached to all her jerseys -- sherry, French cigarettes and dog baskets all blended into one, a lovely Granny fragrance. " (Alexander Waugh, Fathers and Sons : the Autobiography of a Family, 2004, p. 427.)
