The Countess of Warwick opened the first of two bazaars held in Cradley Heath on Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th of February 1912. They were held to raise money to furnish the newly built Workers' Institute. She was very wealthy and moved in high society, so why would such an aristocratic woman agree to come to Cradley Heath to open a bazaar?
Lady Warwick had heard about the chainmakers of Cradley Heath, and their strike of 1910, from her friend, Mary Macarthur. She admired their determination to get a minimum wage. She had a genuine concern for the poor, and had set up a number of Institutions to provide training and education. Later in life she also became a Socialist. She became interested in trade unionism and made speeches supporting both the Labour Party and Trade Unions. It seems less suprising then, that she accepted the invitation.
The Countess of Warwick was born Frances Evelyn Maynard in 1861, but was known as Daisy. She was the elder of two daughters born to the Honourable Charles Maynard and his wife, Blanche Adeliza Fitzroy. She inherited the bulk of the Maynard estates, with 30,000 acres of land and £20,000 a year just in rents.
Daisy was considered suitable to marry Prince Leopold, youngest son of Queen Victoria, but married Francis Greville, Lord Brooke, the heir to the earldom of Warwick. He became the Earl of Warwick, and Daisy the Countess of Warwick, in 1893. She had five children, but one son did not survive.
Lady Warwick's life was a curious mixture of charitable works, political involvement and scandal. In 1886 she began an affair with Lord Beresford. When it became a social scandal, she asked the Prince of Wales to help her so that she would not be socially excluded. She became his lover. The Beresford affair became a public scandal in 1891, and Daisy's reputation was badly damaged. Her marriage survived through a number of infidelities.
Lady Warwick's life-style and generosity led her into serious debt. When she died in 1938, she left her surviving son, Maynard, property worth just £37,000, a tiny fraction of the wealth she inherited in 1865.
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| Updated: | Thu 12 Jul 2007 - 0 |
| Interpretation written by | Barbara Harris |
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