Lady Ursula Ridley

This blog has been researched and written by Shelley Lanser, one of the volunteers on our maternity care project. Project volunteers are researching maternity care in Northumberland with particular focus on Castle Hills Maternity Home, Berwick, and Mona Taylor Maternity Home, Stannington. In 1943, Lady Ridley gave an address at the opening of Mona Taylor Maternity Home. She was also heavily involved in the Newcastle Babies Hospital for many years and organised the evacuation of the Hospital to her home, Blagdon Hall, during World War Two. This is the second of several blog posts about Ursula Viscountess Ridley, who married the 3rd Viscount Ridley. The first post can be found hereLady Ursula Lutyens Ridley (1904-1967) – Northumberland Archives

NRO 8415/31

Ursula Lutyens, daughter of noted architect Edwin “Ned” Lutyens and Lady Emily Lytton Lutyens,  was born 31 Oct 1904 in the parish of St. Giles in London1 and baptised at St. Giles in the Fields church on 12 December of that year.2  She was a sickly baby born with webbed feet. “Ursy’s” illness and Ned’s lack of support for Emily – he was, as usual, disappearing into his work – was the first crisis in her parents’ marriage.3 It has been mooted that fears for Ursula’s initial poor health sparked Ned’s protective feelings and this was a factor in making her his favourite child. This is a preference he never attempted to hide.4

Ursula was named after St. Ursula, seen in paintings by Carpaccio, which were held in Venice. Having searched for evidence that their parents had been to Venice prior to Ursula’s birth, her sister Mary concluded this influence was by reproductions of the Carpaccio series. In addition to his daughter’s name, they inspired Ned to design a couple of beds made of mahogany with wicker work head and foot. Barbie and Ursy slept in what they always called the St. Ursula beds.5

The first home of the Lutyens family was a Georgian house at 29 Bloomsbury Square, in London. This house was once the office of renowned architect, Norman Shaw. Ned described it as “a country house, but with good architecture.” It was really beyond his means, but he splashed out on the £200 rent. When they moved in, his priority was arranging his basement office.6 When he got around to decorating upstairs, he did not follow the trends set by contemporaries Charles Rennie Mackintosh or Baillie Scott, but painted the dining room walls red and the floor green, colours that went with the simple 17th century English oak furniture he designed. The drawing room walls were painted black.7

After the first two children came along, Barbie and Robert, the children were confined to the nursery on the top floor; the basement was off limits. In addition to the day nursery and the night nursery, where Nannie slept with Ursula, Mary and Elisabeth, there was also a small bedroom in which three maids slept. This included a well loved nursery-maid, Annie McKerrow, who joined the family when Ursula was four or five. The cook slept in the basement. A sewing woman came three days a week and made all of children’s clothing and most of Lady Emily’s. (Ned nicknamed her Miss Sew-and-Sew).8 The family lived in this house until the 1914, when the lease ended and the house was scheduled to be demolished.9

One gathers that Ursula was a boisterous child. When she was only two and a half, Ned wrote to Emily about her nephew, Tony, being so obedient when their own children were so rude and disobedient. “[Tony] came to see me in my room and told me he could make more noise than the whole of my family. I said not more than Ursula – he said No, not more than Ursula.” Ned’s comment was “Oh dear.”10 In one of her letters Emily commented that Robert (aged seven) “looked like a guttersnipe” while eating a bacon sandwich. As a “determinedly progressive mother” she was pleased about this. “I’m glad to think that there is no trace of played-out aristocracy about Robert or indeed any of the children – Ursula the most.”11 While the wording is a bit confusing it would appear that, at the age of three anyway, Ursula’s manners did not predict she would marry into a titled family.

While there were understandable reasons for Ursula not getting along with her youngest sister, Mary, later in life, even as a small child she was jealous and scrapped with the next youngest sister, Elizabeth, a pattern that continued. One night, Betty and Ursula were watching infant Mary in her mother’s arms. Betty announced to Ursula, “That baby is mine.” Ursula’s response was to ask her mother, “Don’t you think Betty would feel much better if she didn’t talk?”12

Part of this rivalry may have been sparked by the fact that soon after Mary’s birth, their mother turned her attention away from home and family. She initially put her energy into a variety of interests, including social work and the Women’s Suffrage Movement,13 but in 1910, when Ursula was five or six, Emily’s real passion became the Theosophy Society.14

If Edwin Lutyens was absorbed by his work and Lady Emily by Theosophy, it may be of interest to consider other adults who were present during Ursula’s youth. As stated previously,15 Nannie (Alice Louisa) Sleath played an important role in the children’s lives. Once Nannie joined the Lutyens family she remained with them until her death, largely supplanting Emily as their mother. Even when Barbie was older Emily never felt she was able to get close to her eldest daughter. It was Nannie who taught the children Victorian songs,16 helped Ned pack for India when Emily was away with friends from the Theosophical Society17and who attended a speech by a Labour candidate with Emily, because she expected rowdiness. Nannie wrangled the children’s birthday £1 out of Ned: ‘Come on now, Sir, I want a pound from you for Mary’s birthday.’ ‘Not now, Nannie – later – I’m in a hurry, and it’s not her birthday yet.’ ‘ No, now, Sir – you know what you are – and we shall be away on her birthday.’ She got the £1. Nannie wasn’t in awe of Ned and Mary observed that he didn’t really like her. Mary attributed it to his being jealous because the children all adored Nannie,18 except perhaps Betty, who sounds as though she might not have liked anyone.19

As the children outgrew needing a nannie, sometime in the early 1920’s she changed her clothing to fashionable attire, wore nail polish and an engagement ring, though the engagement apparently never developed.20 Mary remarks that “Far from becoming the old family retainer she had grown very smart and looked years younger.”21 After the children were grown Nannie was only really happy when she went to look after Barbie’s children, while their own nannie was on holiday. In 1935, with the birth of Mary’s first child, she found the perfect nannie for Mary, one who like her ‘never wanted a day off.’ Nannie Sleath died age the age 65 from liver cancer. She was nursed for months by Emily and a nurse. Alice Louisa Sleath was buried in the churchyard at Knebworth.22

1 England, General Register Office, PDF copy of an entry of birth, for Ursula Lutyens, born 31 Oct. and registered 6 Dec. 1904; a copy of an entry in the certified copy of a register of births in the registration district of St. Giles, County of London, Vol. 01B, p 579.

2 London Metropolitan Archives; London, England, UK; London Church of England Parish Registers, accessed on Ancestry.com. London, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1924 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1558/records/14775939?tid=&pid=&queryId=7e267ac1-a648-4529-a2b0-3cd33a4a2777&_phsrc=UmY615&_phstart=successSource accessed 19 Mar 2025.

3 Ridley, Jane. The Architect and His Wife – A Life of Edwin Lutyens (London, Chatto & Windus, 2002) p 159.

4 Lutyens, Mary, Edwin Lutyens by his daughter (London: John Murray, 1985), p 148.

5 Lutyens, p 61.

6 Ridley, Jane. The Architect and His Wife – A Life of Edwin Lutyens (London, Chatto & Windus, 2002) , p 121-2.

7 Ridley, p 137.  

8 Lutyens, p 61-2.

9 Lutyens p 128.

10  Percy, p 138.

11 Ridley, p 169.

12 Ridley, p 179.

13 Lutyens, p 87.

14 Lutyens, p 89.

15 https://northumberlandarchives.com/2024/09/03/lady-ursula-lutyens-ridley-1904-1967/. Accessed 19 Mar 2025.

16 Lutyens, p 205.

17 Ridley, p 212.

18 Lutyens, p 71.

19 Ridley, p 243.

20 Ridley, p 322-3.

21 Lutyens, p 223.

22 Lutyens, p 267.

Who was Samuel Phipps? Delving into our uncatalogued ‘Phipps of Barmoor’ collection, to try and find out.

I have recently begun some work to catalogue a four-box collection of papers relating to the Phipps family of Barmoor (NRO 2372). The documents mostly relate to the life and occupations of Samuel Phipps, who held the Barmoor estate from the mid-eighteenth century until his death in 1791. Samuel did not leave any direct heirs and so following his decease, the land passed to his second cousin, Francis Sitwell, who in turn left it to his second son, also named Francis, the land and manor of Barmoor then descended with the Sitwell family.

Not much is known about Samuel Phipps, except that he held extensive lands, spanning Northumberland, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire. He was mostly based in High Green, near Sheffield, and Lincoln’s Inn, Middlesex, where his business was based, though there is evidence in these documents that he at least visited his other estates. Phipps worked as an attorney, and evidently, he was quite prosperous, as he made many purchases of land in his lifetime, including Ferney Hall in Lincolnshire and of course Barmoor estate.

Beyond this, Samuel Phipps is a bit of a mystery, and our initial research has not yielded much information about his life or his work. This has of course piqued our interest and it is hoped that we will be able to reveal more about him as we work through the collection.

The Contents of NRO 2372, Phipps Box 4

At this point in the project, I have only conducted an initial search and brief listing of the boxes to give me an idea of what sort of material is in the collection. If you look at the above image, you’ll see several bundles of documents and correspondence, which should all help in the quest to find out more about Samuel and his family as this project goes on. Correspondence can be especially useful in understanding the history of a family. Letters include addresses, which allow us to work out where our individual was based, they contain dates, so we can establish a timeline, and crucially, they include firsthand accounts from either the man himself, or from those directly contacting him. The correspondence and accounts we have in this collection are of the ‘business-kind’, so will not give us much insight into Samuel’s personality or direct family life, but we may get more of an understanding of Samuel Phipps, the business man, as we progress. His accounts and expenditure may also give us some insight into his connections – who was he paying and why? Are his expenses for business, entertainment, family or all of the above?

I will continue to note these early findings as I progress through this project, so please do keep an eye on this blog. Hopefully by the end of this project, I will be able to form a clearer picture of who exactly Samuel Phipps was.

Beth Elliott, Project Archivist.

Spot the Difference

What is history? Is it the lives of royalty from centuries past? Is it the landed gentry, perhaps it is mine owners or ship builders? … In the archives we certainly see a lot of material about these groups but … Spoiler alert, it is not just about them!

Recently we had a special delivery of a few papers that give us an insight to a world very seldom seen in traditional county archives.

They are … the full collection of the “Scarlet Women” magazine. “Scarlet Women” was produce by the Coast Women’s Group inspired by the 1976 Women’s Liberation Conference held in Ponteland, Northumberland. This group of pioneering women decided to organise, record and publish the issues that mattered to them and their sisters. A North East printed publication, it discussed the marginalisation of women’s issues by the established Left, and the oppression of women by capitalism and the patriarchy.

Any researcher of women’s history knows that it is rare to hear what our female ancestors
thought. This special collection changes that, as it presents a unique opportunity to understand
the issues facing women of the 1970’s and 1980’s in Northumberland (and further afield too, as
the contributions were national and international)

“Scarlet Women” started life as a typed set of pages, but the editorial team soon progressed to
printing their editions. This helped to visually improve the look of the magazine, and they used
artwork and cartoons to make the magazine more reader friendly and to help spread their
message (neatly illustrated in the ‘Spot the Difference’ image above).

The first edition of the magazine raises the issue of whether, we as women, wear many ‘hats’? For
example, do women wear a feminist hat when attending a union meeting or vice versa. We might
talk about intersectionality these days, but I feel that it is possible to see the roots of such
discussions from the debates covered in “Scarlet Women”.

As a now historical text the magazines do not always make for an easy read, the use of language
has changed over the last fifty or so years and discussions of sexuality, gender and race have moved on, but to view the history of these discussions is fascinating, after all each generation builds on the ideas and discussions of those that come before. It is also lovely to see the building of the movement, physically reflected in the thickness of the issues, as a result of the input from their readership.

A lot of the articles cover the theoretical perspectives of feminism in relation to everyday life but
one article in issue 6/7 was especially compelling, it was all about the birth of the writer’s baby
and her struggle in the medical setting to be respected, comfortable, informed and in control of
the delivery of her baby.

By edition 8 the cover is coloured scarlet, and they discuss the question of wages for housework
And just this year that issue was raised again around International Women’s Day.

There was a total of fourteen issues produced, although edition 15 is in the collection, in its rough draft form and there is a modern reproduction of that issue too, along with a review edition in 2019 asking “Where are we today?”

The magazines cover a period in history that brought much change for women in Britain but reading the magazines highlights how much more there is to do to gain full equality for women.

“Why did the newsletter come to an end? I think we ran out of steam and the various members of the editorial collective were getting involved in other things.”

These ‘things’ by the way included a service for women survivors of domestic abuse, a telephone helpline and setting up the Tyneside Rape Crisis Centre and as Penny Remfry, one of the earliest members says

“Discussions about theory were put on one side in the interests of undermining the power of patriarchy through setting up support groups and services to enable women to get more control over their lives[1].”

The magazines are really something to be proud of and I am personally grateful for the women
who came before me, who asked the questions and had the courage to risk rocking the boat,
Scarlet Women I salute you.

“The hand that rocks the cradle will one day rock the boat2



1 “Scarlet Women 1982-2019 Where are we today?”

2 “Scarlett Women Five” circa 1977