Katharine Asquith

Katharine Frances Asquith (née Horner; 9 September 1885 – 9 July 1976) was an English landowner and patron of the arts. During the First World War, she served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse.[1] She was the wife of Raymond Asquith and the daughter-in-law of wartime prime minister H. H. Asquith.

Katharine Asquith
Katharine and Raymond Asquith in 1913
Born
Katharine Frances Horner

(1885-09-09)9 September 1885
Mells Park, Somerset, England
Died9 July 1976(1976-07-09) (aged 90)
Mells Park, Somerset, England
NationalityEnglish
OccupationLandowner
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1907; died 1916)​
Children3; including Julian
Parent(s)Sir John Horner
Frances Graham

Early life and family

Katharine Horner was the younger daughter of Frances (née Graham) and Sir John Horner.[2] She was born at Mells Park, Somerset, the ancestral home of the Horners since the Reformation. Her parents were original members of the exclusive aristocratic social circle "The Souls." In addition to Katharine, her parents had three other children:

Educated by governesses and travel, Katharine developed a love for poetry, philosophy and could read Greek.[3]: 18 [4] Cynthia Asquith described her as "tall, slender, starry-eyed, with a countenance of rare and changeful loveliness, [she] was a living poem. I have never seen any eyes like hers".[5] Another friend, Blanche Stanley commented, "All girls — like all men — long to know you well because you are so beautiful but are puzzled how to do it because you are so uncommon and remote".[6]: 32 

Marriage

Katharine met her future husband, Raymond Asquith (1878-1916), a barrister and the eldest son of H. H. Asquith, in the summer of 1901 at Mells.[7]: 93  Subsequent holidays with the Horners in Austria (1903), Venice (1904) and Ireland (1905) and a shared love of poetry brought the two closer together.[7]: 93–94  Raymond wrote to her: "You know how I would like to give you the whole world, if it were mine, and the sun and moon and all the stars."[7]: 113  Marriage, however, was not possible due to her parents' desire that Katharine see "a little more of the world and a few more potential husbands," and Raymond's inability to support a wife on his earnings from the law.[7]: 94 

However, Raymond's father and stepmother, Margot Tennant Asquith, provided him an allowance.[7]: 94"  Katharine and Raymond became engaged in February 1907, and on 25 July 1907, they were married in St Margaret's, Westminster. They made their home at 49 Bedford Square in Bloomsbury and at Mells Manor, where Katharine's parents continued to live.[3]: 80  Raymond was killed on the battlefront in 1916, and Sir John died in 1927. Lady Horner continued to live with the family until her own death in 1940. Both Raymond and Katharine were central members of the "Corrupt Coterie," composed largely of children of the Souls and who in the words of Lady Diana Cooper, were "unafraid of words, unshocked by drink, and unashamed of "decadence" and gambling."[6]: 32  Raymond's nickname for Katharine was "Fawnia".[8]: 366  Katharine and Raymond had three children:

When their third child and only son was born, Asquith wrote from the Front to Katharine about their future plans; "Shall we send him into the Cabinet or into the Grenadiers?"[11]: 259  They nicknamed the boy "Trim" after Trimalchio, a character in the work of Petronius.[10] Katharine and her friend Lady Diana Manners were both Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurses during the war, and Diana recorded that they both gained some temporary relief from their troubles during this period by drugging themselves with morphia.[12] In April 1918, Katharine's nursing career took her to the Duchess of Sutherland's Hospital at Saint-Omer, France, and the children were looked after by a nanny.[13] While in France, Katharine movingly wrote her mother: "We drove back quite late we weren't very far from the front lines - say eight miles & the sky was lit by the guns - just like summer lightning & I felt that I saw just what Raymond & E must have seen every night."[14] Katharine was recommended for the British Empire Medal for her performance of duty.[15]

Later life

Raymond was killed in action on 15 September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. Raymond's death was shattering for Katharine. A few days after receiving the death notification, her father-in-law visited Katharine and recalled, "I have never seen anyone so stunned and shattered. All she wants to do is to die."[8]: 370  Katharine never remarried, and Evelyn Waugh's biographer, Selina Hastings, commented that she "lived her life permanently in the shadow of her husband's death."[16]: 294  Katharine converted to Roman Catholicism in 1923[17] and brought up her children in the Catholic faith.[18][10] She arranged for a private chapel to be built in the manor house.[19]

Her two brothers having died, Katharine inherited Mells Manor after her parents' death. She welcomed many Catholic writers and thinkers such as Evelyn Waugh, Christopher Hollis, Douglas Woodruff, Siegfried Sassoon, Hilaire Belloc, Martin D'Arcy, and Ronald Knox. Katharine first met Evelyn Waugh on a Hellenic cruise in September 1933 and struck up a close friendship that lasted until his death.[16]: 284  In a letter to Katharine, Waugh revealed "There is no one whose opinion I value more than yours."[16]: 284  She became godmother to Waugh's son, Auberon, and Waugh dedicated his biography of Ronald Knox to Katharine and Lady Daphne Acton. Another prominent convert, close friend and frequent visitor to Mells was the poet Siegfried Sassoon who was received into the Roman Catholic church in 1957 and later buried in St Andrew's churchyard.

After the Second World War Ronald Knox settled at Mells.[20]: 74  Knox, himself a convert, had been Roman Catholic chaplain at the University of Oxford before the war. While a resident, Knox finished his re-translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible into English. Early in 1957, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and Katharine cared for him in person until his death later in the year. He was buried in the churchyard at St Andrew's, where Katharine was also buried on her death in 1976, at the age of 90.[21]

Both Katharine and Raymond are portrayed in Phoebe Traquair's apse mural in All Saints, Thorney Hill, Hampshire.

References
  1. "Katharine Frances Asquith (née Horner)". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
  2. Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003. Page 3037
  3. MacKenzie, Jeanne (1986). Children of the Souls: A Tragedy of the First World War. Chatto and Windus
  4. Beauman, Nicola (1987). Cynthia Asquith. London: Hamish Hamilton. Page 113
  5. Asquith, Cynthia (1952). Remember and Be Glad. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Page 88
  6. Ziegler, Philip (1981). Diana Cooper London: Hamish Hamilton
  7. John Jolliffe, ed. (1980). "III: The Bar, Courtship and Marriage 1902-1914". Raymond Asquith: Life and Letters. London: Collins. ISBN 000216714X.
  8. Clifford, Colin (2003). The Asquiths London: John Murray
  9. "Obituary:Lady Helen Asquith". The Telegraph. 8 July 2000. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
  10. "Obituary:The Earl of Oxford and Asquith". The Telegraph. 17 January 2011. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
  11. John Jolliffe, ed. (1980). "IV: War, 1914-1916". Raymond Asquith: Life and Letters. London: Collins. ISBN 000216714X.
  12. Pamela Horn (15 October 2013). Country House Society: The Private Lives of England's Upper Class After the First World War. Amberley Publishing Limited. pp. 17–. ISBN 978-1-4456-3538-5.
  13. Caroline Dakers (19 September 2013). The Countryside at War 1914-1918. Little, Brown Book Group. pp. 79–. ISBN 978-1-4721-1337-5.
  14. "The Home of Our Delight: Mells and the First World War" Exhibit: www.homeofourdelight.org.uk
  15. "Mrs Katharine Asquith". First World War volunteers. British Red Cross. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
  16. Hastings, Selina (1995). "Evelyn Waugh: A Biography." London: Minerva
  17. Helen McPhail; Philip Guest (15 March 2001). Sassoon & Graves: On the Trail of the Poets of the Great War. Pen and Sword. pp. 224–. ISBN 978-1-4738-1471-4.
  18. Anthony Powell (1983). The strangers all are gone. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. ISBN 978-0-03-063279-2.
  19. Gerald Gliddon (October 2002). The aristocracy and the Great War. Gliddon Books. ISBN 9780947893354.
  20. Violet Powell (1998). The Departure Platform. W. Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-434-00507-9.
  21. "A Magical Day at Mells: WPA 'Siegfried Sassoon at Mells' Event 28 May 2005". War Poets Association. Archived from the original on 28 July 2011. Retrieved 22 August 2011.
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