Elizabeth Montagu

Lady Elizabeth Montagu, known as Betty Montagu, (4 July 1917 – 10 January 2006) was a British novelist, nurse, and art collector. The daughter of the 9th Earl of Sandwich and the American heiress Alberta Sturges, she grew up at Hinchingbrooke House in Huntingdon and was educated at North Foreland Lodge. A prominent debutante in the 1930s, she was active in the London Season before World War II. When war broke out in Europe, she volunteered as a nurse, heading the casualties department at St. Thomas' Hospital in London. After the war ended, she served on the teaching staff at the Royal College of Nursing until 1950. In the 1950s and 1960s, Lady Elizabeth was a celebrated novelist. She published three novels through Heinemann, Waiting for Camilla in 1953, The Small Corner in 1955, and This Side of the Truth in 1947. In 1958 she published an English translation of Carl Zuckmayer's 1955 drama Das kalte Licht. Lady Elizabeth also wrote contributing pieces for various British magazines, including Encounter. Her final work, a collection of short stories titled Change, and Other Stories, was published in 1966. She succumbed to alcoholism and never wrote again. Her work was praised by Sir John Betjeman, John Davenport, and Graham Greene and she received glowing reviews in The Times Literary Supplement and the New Statesman. Lady Elizabeth was also an amateur artist who painted country scenes and drew portraits of her friends. She was an avid art collector and, along with maintaining a large art collection she inherited from her father, she collected works by Graham Sutherland, Sir Sidney Nolan, Frank Auerbach, and Michael Andrews. Early life and family Lady Elizabeth Montagu was born on 4 July 1917 in London, the youngest child of George Montagu, 9th Earl of Sandwich and Alberta Montagu, Countess of Sandwich. She was a younger sister of Victor Montagu, 10th Earl of Sandwich, The Honourable William Drogo Sturges Montagu, and Lady Mary Faith Montagu. Her paternal grandfather, Rear Admiral The Honourable Victor Montagu, was an officer in the Royal Navy and a godson of Queen Victoria. Her paternal great-grandfather was Charles Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke. On her mother's side, Lady Elizabeth was the granddaughter of Betty Leggett and a descendent of the American judge Jonathan Sturges. She was a grandniece of Josephine MacLeod, who, like her mother and grandmother, was a devotee of the Hindu monk and philosopher Swami Vivekananda.