Lina Waterfield

Caroline Lucie 'Lina' Waterfield OBE (16 August 1874 – 27 November 1964) was an English author and Italian correspondent for The Observer and The Sunday Times. She founded the library which became the British Institute of Florence. Early life Lina Duff-Gordon was the only child of Maurice Duff-Gordon and his wife, Fanny. Maurice was the son and heir of Sir Alexander Cornewall Duff-Gordon, 3rd Baronet, and his wife, the writer Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon. Waterfield was born on 16 August 1874 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris. In 1884 her father inherited and moved the family to Fyvie Castle in Scotland, but he subsequently went to live with a mistress, whom he later married, and Lina was sent to a Catholic convent school in Paris. Her mother asked Janet Ross, Maurice's sister, to pay for Lina to attend a convent school in Paris, and since she had terminal cancer, arranged for Ross and her husband Henry to adopt her. Fanny Duff-Gordon died early in 1890, and after Lina wrote that she was being pressured to become a nun, in December she moved into the Ross' residence, in Settignano near Florence. Her father gave permission for her adoption early in 1891, and she spent the rest of her childhood there, finishing her education with friends of her aunt's such as the artist Carlo Orsi and Guido Biagi, the head of the Laurentian Library. Lina Waterfield was progressive in her politics following her adoption by the Ross family. She decorated the walls of her room with pictures of heroes of the Risorgimento and refused to be presented at Court. By 1914 she was a suffragette. As a young woman she was considered a beauty and was painted by George Frederic Watts, costumed based on Leonardo da Vinci.