Evelyn Gardner

Evelyn Florence Margaret Winifred Gardner (27 September 1903 – 11 March 1994) was the youngest child of Herbert Gardner, 1st Baron Burghclere, and the first wife of Evelyn Waugh. She was one of the Bright Young Things. Early life The Hon. Evelyn Florence Margaret Winifred Gardner was born on 27 September 1903 in London. She was the youngest of four daughters born to Herbert Gardner, 1st Baron Burghclere, and Lady Winifred Anne Henrietta Christiana (née Herbert) Byng. Her mother was the widow of Captain Alfred John George Byng (a son of George Byng, 2nd Earl of Strafford) who died in 1887. Among her sisters was Alathea, who married Sir Geoffrey Fry, 1st Baronet, and Mary, who married Geoffrey Hope-Morley, 2nd Baron Hollenden. Her paternal grandparents were Alan Gardner, 3rd Baron Gardner, and his second wife, the professional actress Juliah Sarah (née Fortescue). Her father was born two years before his parents' marriage and was consequently not allowed to succeed in the barony of Gardner on his father's death in 1883 but was himself raised to the peerage as Baron Burghclere, of Walden in the County of Essex, in 1895. Her maternal grandparents were Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, and Lady Evelyn Stanhope, a daughter of George Stanhope, 6th Earl of Chesterfield. Bright Young Things In the 1920s she was one of the Bright Young Things, a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of bohemian young aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London, and lived alone with Pansy Pakenham (one of the four daughters of Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford). It was such an unusual arrangement that they were interviewed by Alec Waugh in the spring of 1927 for an article on modern girls. The two girls invited Alec to a party given in Portland Place by the Ranee of Sarawak, and he brought along his brother Evelyn Waugh. Before Waugh, Gardner had been engaged at least nine times, including to a soldier, a ship's purser, and a middle-aged divorcé. Harold Acton said she was "a fauness, with a little snub nose". Her closest friend, Nancy Mitford (daughter of the 2nd Baron Redesdale), said she was "a ravishing boy, a page".