TheMitford family is an aristocratic English family who became particularly well-known in the 1930s for the sixMitford sisters, the daughters ofDavid Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and his wife, Sydney Bowles.^[a] They were celebrated and sometimes scandalous figures. One journalist described them as "Diana the Fascist,Jessica the Communist,Unity theHitler-lover;Nancy the Novelist;Deborah the Duchess andPamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur".^[1]

The family traces its origins inNorthumberland back to the time of theNorman Conquest.In the Middle Ages they had beenBorder Reivers based inRedesdale. The main line had itsfamily seat first atMitford Castle, thenMitford Old Manor House, prior to buildingMitford Hall in 1828. All three are nearMitford, Northumberland. Several heads of the family served asHigh Sheriff of Northumberland.

A junior line, with seats at Newton Park,Northumberland, andExbury House,Hampshire, descends via the historianWilliam Mitford (1744–1827) and were twice elevated to theBritish peerage, in 1802 and 1902, under the titleBaron Redesdale.^[2] This branch of the family, to whom the Mitford sisters belonged, were seated atBatsford Park, Gloucestershire, and then atAsthall Manor and Swinbrook, in Oxfordshire.

• Nancy Mitford (28 November 1904 – 30 June 1973) married Peter Rodd, whom she subsequently divorced, and had a longstanding relationship with French politician and statesmanGaston Palewski. She lived in France for much of her adult life. She wrote many novels, including the semi-autobiographicalThe Pursuit of Love andLove in a Cold Climate. She was also a biographer of historical figures, including theSun King.
• Pamela "Pam" Mitford (25 November 1907 – 12 April 1994) was called "Woman" by her siblings.^[3]John Betjeman, who for a time was in love with her, referred to her as the "Rural Mitford". She married and later divorced millionaire physicistDerek Jackson, and spent much of the 1960s living with Giuditta Tommasi (died 1993), an Italian horsewoman.^[4]
• Thomas David "Tom" Mitford (2 January 1909 – 30 March 1945), the only son, was educated atEton, where he had an affair withJames Lees-Milne.^[5] He later had a lengthy affair with Austrian Jewish dancerTilly Losch during her marriage toEdward James. According to Jessica's letters, Thomas supported British fascism and was posted to theBurma campaign after he had refused to fight in Europe.^[6] He died in action.
• Diana Mitford (17 June 1910 – 11 August 2003) married aristocrat and writerBryan Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne, in 1929. She left him in 1933 for British fascist leaderOswald Mosley, who she married in 1936 and with whom she had two sons, Alexander andMax Mosley. The couple were interned inHolloway Prison from May 1940 until November 1943.
• Unity Valkyrie Mitford (8 August 1914 – 28 May 1948) was known as "Bobo" or "Boud" to her siblings. Her adulation of, and friendship with,Adolf Hitler was widely publicised. Sheshot herself in the head just hours afterBritain declared war on Germany,^[6] surviving, but with permanent brain damage. In 1944 her family sent her to the Scottish islet ofInch Kenneth, where she lived out the war.^[7] She died ofpneumococcal meningitis at West Highland Cottage Hospital, Oban.
• Jessica Lucy "Decca" Mitford (11 September 1917 – 23 July 1996), unlike the rest of her family, was acommunist. She eloped withEsmond Romilly to Spain to participate inthe Civil War; they subsequently moved to the United States. On 30 November 1941, during an air raid onHamburg, Romilly's aircraftwas lost over the North Sea with all on board. She remained in the U.S. most of her adult life, where she marriedRobert Treuhaft and was a member of theAmerican Communist Party until 1958. She wrote several volumes of memoirs and several volumes of polemical investigation, including the best-sellingThe American Way of Death (1963) about thefuneral industry. She was the grandmother ofJames Forman Jr. and Chaka Forman, sons of the African-Americancivil rights leaderJames Forman by her daughter Constancia Romilly.
• Deborah Vivien "Debo" Mitford (31 March 1920 – 24 September 2014) was nicknamed "Nine" by her sister Nancy (Debo's supposed mental age).^[8] She marriedAndrew Cavendish (1920—2004), who later became the Duke of Devonshire, and with him turned his ancestral homeChatsworth House into one of Britain's most successfulstately homes. She wrote several books.

The sisters gained widespread attention for their stylish and controversial lives as young people, and for their public political divisions between communism and fascism.Nancy andJessica became well-known writers: Nancy wroteThe Pursuit of Love andLove in a Cold Climate, and JessicaThe American Way of Death (1963). Deborah managedChatsworth House, one of the most successfulstately homes in England.

Jessica and Deborah married nephews of prime ministersWinston Churchill andHarold Macmillan, respectively. Deborah andDiana both married wealthy aristocrats.Unity and Diana were well known during the 1930s for being close toAdolf Hitler. Jessica turned her back on her inherited privileges and eloped with her cousin,Esmond Romilly, who was hoping to report on the Spanish Civil War for theNews Chronicle, having briefly fought with theInternational Brigade.^[9] Jessica's memoir,Hons and Rebels, describes their upbringing. Nancy drew upon her family members for characters in her novels. In 1981, Deborah became politically active when she and her husbandAndrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire, joined the newSocial Democratic Party.^[6]

The sisters and their brother Thomas were the children ofDavid Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, and his wife Sydney, the daughter ofThomas Bowles. To their children, they were known as "Farve" and "Muv", respectively. David and Sydney married in 1904. The family homes changed from Batsford House toAsthall Manor beside theRiver Windrush in Oxfordshire, and then Swinbrook Cottage nearby, with a house at Rutland Gate in London.^[10] They also lived in a cottage inHigh Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, which they used as a summer residence.^[11]

The siblings grew up in an aristocraticcountry house with emotionally distant parents and a large household with numerous servants. This family dynamic was not unusual for upper-class families of the time. The parents disregarded formal education of women of the family, and they were expected to marry at a young age to a financially well-off husband. The children had a private language called "Boudledidge" (/ˈboʊdəldɪdʒ/), and each had a different nickname for the others.

After theNazi Regime started theInvasion of Poland, theSecond World War began and their political views came into sharper relief. "Farve" remained a conservative who had long favoured theNeville Chamberlain's approach of appeasingNazi Germany. OnceBritain declared war on Germany, he returned to being an anti-German British patriot. "Muv" continued her fascist sympathies and usually supported her fascist children. The couple separated in 1943 as a result of this conflict.^[12]

Nancy, amoderate socialist, worked in London duringthe Blitz and informed on her fascist siblings to the British authorities.^[12] Pamela remained seemingly non-political, although according to her sister Nancy, Pamela and Derek Jackson were virulentanti-Semites verbally during World War II, who had called for all Jews in England to be killed, and wanted an early end to the war with Nazi Germany before England lost any more money.^[12]

Tom, a fascist, refused to fight Germany but volunteered to fight againstImperial Japan. He waskilled in action in Burma in 1945. Diana, also a fascist, married toSir Oswald Mosley, leader of theBritish Union of Fascists, was imprisoned in London from May 1940 until November 1943 underDefence Regulation 18B. Unity, fanatically devoted to Hitler and Nazism, was distraught over Britain's war declaration against Germany on 3 September 1939, and tried to commit suicide later that day by shooting herself in the head. She failed in the suicide attempt, but suffered brain damage that eventually led to her early death in 1948.^[6]

Jessica, acommunist, had moved to the US, but her husbandEsmond Romilly, aRepublican veteran from theSpanish Civil War who volunteered for theRoyal Canadian Air Force inWorld War II, died in 1941 when his bomber developed mechanical problems over the North Sea and went down.^[6] In numerous letters Jessica said that her daughter Constancia received a pension from the Canadian government after Esmond's death until she turned 18.^[6]

The strong political rift between Jessica and Diana left them estranged from 1936 until their deaths, although they did speak to each other in 1973, as their eldest sister Nancy was on her deathbed. Aside from Jessica and Diana's estrangement, the sisters kept in frequent contact with each other in the decades after World War II. The sisters were prolific letter-writers, and a substantial body of correspondence still exists, principally letters between them.^[1]

• Nancy Mitford's 1949 novel,Love in a Cold Climate, which was based on the family, was serialised byThames Television in 1980 and by theBBC in 2001. Her novelThe Pursuit of Love was serialised by the BBC in2021.
• The daughters were the subject of a 1981 musical,The Mitford Girls, byCaryl Brahms andNed Sherrin, and of a song, "The Mitford Sisters", byLuke Haines.
• A fictional family based on the Mitford sisters features prominently inJo Walton's 2007 novelHa'penny; Viola Lark, one of the point-of-view characters, is one of the sisters, another is married toHimmler, and a third is a Communist spy.
• The fictional "Combe sisters" in theBBC 2 seriesBellamy's People, first broadcast in 2010, bear a striking resemblance to the Mitford sisters. Bellamy meets two of the surviving Combe sisters, said to have been notorious in the 1930s and '40s for their extreme political views, now living together in a strained relationship in the dramatically different political realities of 2010. One an avid fascist and the other a committed Communist, the sisters have hit upon the solution of dividing their stately home down the middle, each converting her side into a homage to her ideology.
• Sharon Horgan,Samantha Spiro, andSophie Ellis-Bextor played a version of the Mitford Sisters in a song-based sketch for Season 2 of theSky Arts comedy seriesPsychobitches, in the winter of 2014.
• In hisFrench language trilogy of novels –Le Vent du soir (1985),Tous les hommes en sont fous (1985), andLe Bonheur à San Miniato (1987) –Jean d'Ormesson recounts a much-imagined version of the exploits of four of the Mitford sisters, through the characters Pandora, Vanessa, Atalanta, and Jessica.
• A portion of Jessica Mitford's writing is used as a spoken-word introduction to the song "Last Act of Defiance", about theNew Mexico State Penitentiary riot, on thrash metal bandExodus's 1989 albumFabulous Disaster.
• Jessica Fellowes has written six mystery novels,The Mitford Murders (2017),Bright Young Dead (2018),The Mitford Scandal (2020),The Mitford Trial (2021),The Mitford Vanishing (2022), andThe Mitford Secret (2023), which feature the three oldest sisters, Nancy, Pamela, and Diana as major characters, and the rest of the family in supporting roles.^[13]
• Diana Mitford is depicted in Season 6 of the BBC/Netflix TV seriesPeaky Blinders (2022), played by British actressAmber Anderson. The show is set in the 1930s and depicts Diana, and husband Oswald Mosley, getting involved with fictional protagonist Tommy Shelby to advance their political goals.^[14]
• In theDiscworld novelThe Fifth Elephant byTerry Pratchett, werewolf Watchwoman Angua von Überwald refers to two relatives of hers as Nancy and Unity. Angua's brother Wolfgang is a werewolf supremacist whose personal insignia reflect those of Nazism.
• In the fourth series ofBBC comedy television seriesThe Thick Of It, British Government minister Peter Mannion describes hisspecial adviser Emma Messinger as having "turned into the wrong Mitford sister"^[15] during a presentation where she remarks on the physical attractiveness of a likely candidate forLeader of the Opposition.
• Outrageous is an upcoming British television series about the Mitford sisters.

The Mitford sisters byWilliam Acton:

• 
  Nancy Mitford (1904–1973)
• 
  Pamela Mitford (1907–1994)
• 
  Diana Mitford (1910–2003)
• 
  Unity Mitford (1914–1948)
• 
  Jessica Mitford (1917–1996)
• 
  Deborah Mitford (1920–2014)

Informational notes

Citations

Bibliography

• Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire (2010).Wait for Me!: Memoirs. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.ISBN 978-0-374-20768-7.

Further reading

• Burke, John (1835).A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, Enjoying Territorial Possessions Or High Official Rank. Great Britain: Nabu Press.ISBN 978-1-171-81928-8.
• Guinness, Jonathan (1984).The House of Mitford. London: Hutchinson.ISBN 978-0-753-81803-9.
• Lovell, Mary S. (2001).The Mitford Girls: The Saga of the Mitford Family. London: Little, Brown and Company.ISBN 978-0-393-01043-5.
• Mosley, Charlotte (2007).The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters. London: Fourth Estate.ISBN 978-0-061-37540-8.
• Thompson, Laura (2016).The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters. New York: St. Martin's Press.ISBN 978-1-250-09953-2.

• Nancy Mitford Website
• Genealogical pictures of the Mitford family at theWayback Machine (archived 21 October 2008)
• Audio interview with Christopher Hitchens of Jessica Mitford (1988) atarchive.today (archived 21 January 2013)
• The Mitford Society, Facebook

• Mitford family
• English families
• English socialites
• People from Oxfordshire

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