Nancy Cunard (1896 - 1965) - British

WW1 poster

Nancy Cunard was born on 10th March 1896 in Nevill Holt, Harborough District, Leicestershire, UK.  Her parents were Sir Bache Cunard, an heir to the Cunard shipping line and a baronet, and Maud Alice, nee Burke, an American heiress.

During the First World War, Nancy remained in London where she and her friends - the poet Iris Tree and Lady Diana Manners - dealt with their fear of losing friends who enlisted, and the terror of air raids at home, by dressing up in their finery and partying. 

The girls also volunteered for war work in canteens, worked tirelessly for charities and raised funds for the war effort. They had friends who confided their secret fears to the girls before going off to war, their worst fear being not having a proper burial due to being blown to bits.   

On 15th November 1916, Nancy married Sydney George Fairbairn, a cricketer and army officer who was wounded fighting during the Gallipoli Campaign. They honeymooned in Devon and Cornwall, the set up home in London in a house given to them by Nancy's mother as a wedding present. The couple separated in 1919 and divorced in 1925.

Nancy died in Paris on 17th March 1965 and is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Île-de-France, Paris, France - Grave Reference: Division 87, Columbarium- however, it seems that the headstone no longer exists.

Nancy Cunard portrait

Nancy's WW1 poetry collections were:  "Outlaws and other poems" (Elkin Mathews, London, 1921) and "Paralas" (Hogarth, 1925).  She also had poems published in two  editions of the Sitwells' "Wheels" anthologies  - 1916 and 1917.

Sources:  Chatherine W. REILLY.- "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1975) pp. 32 and 101, 

GORDON, Lois.- “Nancy Cunard Heiress, use, Political Idealist” (Columbia University Press, Chichester, 2007).
www.en.wikiipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Cunard

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11067640/nancy-clare-cunard

Photograph of Nancy Cunard centre - with her friend Lady Diana Manners (left) - at a sale in December 1915, held in Harrods department store, London, UK in aid of the Red Cross Fund.   Photograph from “The Tatler” Magazine, 8th December 1915. 

Found by Zoe Lyons and posted on Sue Robinson’s Facebook Group Wenches in Trenches https://www.facebook.com/groups/381631619655707/