Hedley Hope-Nicholson
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Hedley Hope-Nicholson | |
|---|---|
| Born | William Hedley Kenelm Nicholson 17 July 1888 |
| Died | 18 July 1969 (aged 81) |
| Education | University of Oxford |
| Occupation | Barrister |
| Spouse | Jaqueline Louise Rachel Hope |
| Children | 3, including Felix Hope-Nicholson |
| Relatives | Jean Hugo (son-in-law) |
Hedley Hope-Nicholson (born William Hedley Kenelm Nicholson; 17 July 1888 – 18 July 1969), barrister and littérateur, was, with his wife Jaqueline, notable in English artistic and literary circles in the first half of the twentieth century.[1]
(William) Hedley Kenelm Nicholson was born at Bowdon, Cheshire, son of Alfred John Nicholson (1858-1928), a woollen merchant and coat manufacturer (Nicholson's Raincoats, of St Albans, Hertfordshire) from a family of Manchester tailors, and his wife Mary (1856-1926), daughter of currier Thomas Cleghorn, of Bildeston, Suffolk.[2][3] His twin brother, Sigismund John Nicholson, died aged two. The family later lived at St Albans. Nicholson was educated at the University of Oxford.[4][5][6]
Career
A barrister of the Inner Temple,[7] and heir to his father's "raincoat fortune",[8] Hope-Nicholson counted among various eccentric hobbies a keen interest in King Charles I and was editor of the quarterly magazine of the Society of King Charles the Martyr. He kept a relic from the King's coffin and a piece of the shirt he wore on the scaffold in a box in the consecrated chapel in their London family home, More House, 34, Tite Street, Chelsea, formerly home of Oscar Wilde.[9] His other great passion was for the Russian ballet. He was the author of The Mindes Delight: or Variety of Memorable Matters Worthy of Observation (1928). Hope-Nicholson had joined the Norfolk Regiment as a private in 1916, but applied for discharge on medical grounds for lung trouble, and was discharged having been assessed as unlikely to make a good soldier.[10]
