Anne Grey de Courcy (née Barrett; born December 1927)[1] is an English biographer and journalist, including as women's editor on the London Evening News, as a columnist for the London Evening Standard and as a feature writer for the Daily Mail.[2]

Early life and education

Anne Grey Barrett was born in December 1927, daughter of Major John Lionel Mackenzie Barrett (d. 1940),[3] of The Tallat, Northleach, Gloucestershire, an officer in the 13th/18th Royal Hussars, and Evelyn Kathleen Frances (1898–1987), daughter of Thomas Stewart Porter, of Clogher Park, County Tyrone (he took his mother's family name, Porter, instead of his father's, Ellison-Macartney, as an heir of the Porter family of Belle Isle, County Longford)[4] Her mother was a descendant of Sir Alan Bellingham, 3rd Baronet. A brother, Christopher, was born in 1930.[5][6][7] She was educated at Wroxall Abbey, in Warwickshire.[7]

Career

De Courcy worked for the London Evening News as women's editor in the 1970s. In 1980, de Courcy joined the London Evening Standard as a columnist. Between 1982 and 2003, she was a feature writer for the Daily Mail.

Since 1969, she has produced a number of books, including biographies and social histories.[7]

Personal life

In 1951, she married Michael Charles Cameron Claremont Constantine de Courcy, a journalist and RAF officer, half-brother of John de Courcy, 35th Baron Kingsale. He was killed in a flying accident in 1953, aged 22.[6] She then married in 1959 barrister Robert Armitage (1921–1998) of a landed gentry family of Milnsbridge House, Huddersfield; they had three children.[8][9][10]

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ "Anne de Courcy Limited". Companies London.
  2. ^ Peter Stanford (29 October 2014). "Meet Margot Asquith – a prime minister's wife who was more vilified than Cherie..." The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 29 October 2014.
  3. ^ "Wills and Estates". The Herald. Melbourne. 4 September 1940. p. 10 – via Trove.
  4. ^ A. C. Fox-Davies, ed. (1912). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland. Harrison & Sons. p. 571.
  5. ^ Debrett's Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage, Dean & Son Ltd, 1931, p. cv
  6. ^ a b Charles Mosley, ed. (2003). Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage. Vol. 2 (107th ed.). p. 2177.
  7. ^ a b c Contemporary Authors, vol. 121, Gale Group, 2004, p. 111
  8. ^ A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, 8th ed., vol. 1, ed. Ashworth P. Burke, Harrison & Sons, 1894, p. 40
  9. ^ "Armitage of High Royd and Milnsbridge House", 23 July 2015, Landed Families of Britain by Nicholas Kingsley
  10. ^ "Kingsale, Baron (I, c.1340)". cracroftspeerage.co.uk.
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