Helen Vivien Gould

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Lady Decies with husband, November 1911

Helen Vivien Gould , married Lady Helen Beresford, Baroness Decies (born January 1, 1893 in New York City , † February 3, 1931 in London ) was an American heiress and member of the New York and London high society .

Life

Family crest of the Marquess of Waterford and Baron Beresford

Helen Vivien Gould was the eldest daughter of the President of the Western Pacific Railroad George Jay Gould I. Her mother was a well-known theater actress before the marriage , her older brother Jay Gould II a successful tennis player.

Gould was tutored at home by governesses and tutors with the help of his father's library . She then completed a degree in Classical Literature , Philosophy and Mathematics at the exclusive girls' college Brearley School .

During her vacation, she often accompanied her parents on their travels through Europe, where she also met her future husband, the Irish aristocrat and politician John Graham Hope de la Poer Beresford, 5th Baron Decies (1866–1944). They were married on February 7, 1911 at St Bartholomew Church in New York. The wedding of the well-known entrepreneur's daughter with the 27-year-old foreigner attracted a lot of attention, Beresford received threatening letters and demands for duels. On the day of the wedding, police cordoned off the entire block to keep thousands of onlookers away from the ceremony. After traveling through Egypt , the couple moved into Manchester House in London. They had three children together.

Gould belonged to the inner circle of friends of the Prince of Wales and later King Edward VIII . She and her husband accompanied him on his travels, including to America and on a big game safari in East Africa . On one of her travels in the Mediterranean, Lady Decies fell ill with jaundice and died at the age of 38 as a result of an anesthetic error during an operation to remove the diseased gallbladder .

Her remains were buried on the family estate.

literature

  • A&C Black et al .: Who's who (1912). A&C Black, p. 553
  • Mark S Hoffman: The World Almanac and Book of Facts (1932). World Almanac Books, p. 130 (reprinted 1994)
  • Gail MacColl, Carol McD. Wallace: To marry an English Lord: the Victorian and Edwardian experience . Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989, pp. 334ff.
  • Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden: The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom , Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton Publishing (2000)
  • Peter W. Hammond: The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times , Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing (1998)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Would You Let Your Daughter Marry a Man Old Enough to Be Her Father? . Chicago Daily Tribune, February 12, 1911
  2. ^ Decies Family Arrives . New York Times, February 4, 1911
  3. ↑ Vivien Gould Weds; Police holds crowds . New York Times, February 8, 1911
  4. ^ Decies and Bride leave for Egypt . New York Times, February 19, 1911.
personal data
SURNAME Gould, Helen Vivien
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beresford, Helen, Baroness Desies
BRIEF DESCRIPTION High society lady in New York and London society in the Belle Époque
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1893
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH February 3, 1931
Place of death London