Charles Bower Ismay and his wife, Matilda Constance Ismay. M...

Hammer

£2,000

Charles Bower Ismay and his wife, Matilda Constance Ismay.
Mrs Ismay was born in New York b (Matilda Constance Schieffelin) in 1880 and lived there until her marriage in 1900 to Charles Bower Ismay (born 1874), youngest son of the founder of the White Star Line, Thomas Henry Ismay of Dawpool, Cheshire. They had one daughter, Florence Delaplaine.
Bower Ismay's interests centred on racing and horses. He bought Haselbech Hall in 1909, a small country house in the heart of the Pytchley hunt. It was a typical estate of the time with many indoor and outdoor staff. Haselbech itself was a small hamlet where life centred on the Hall, its visitors, hunting and social life.
Bower bred and raced racehorses. He was briefly in the limelight in a sensational racing incident as the owner of Craganour, the horse that passed the post in first place, as favourite, in the 1931 Derby, only to be disqualified shortly after for interfering with another horse. This was also the notorious Derby where the suffragette Emily Davis ran out under the hooves of the King's horse Anmer and was killed.
After this, Bower lost interest in the horses and sold Craganour for £30,000 to a stud in Argentina. He had been in the army fighting in the Boer War and in the cavalry during WWI but died in 1924 aged 50, possibly from Enchpalitils lethargica, a mysterious early 20th cent. Epidemic that may have killed half a million people worldwide.
Mrs Ismay was a keen traveller in the years prior to WWII visiting many countries. Most unusually she embarked on a journey to Timbuktu across the Sahara in the winter of 1933, in a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce with a companion and maid, a journey that had to be abandoned when the Rolls Royce became bogged down in the sand.
At the outbreak of war Haselbech Hall was requisitioned by the army and Mrs Ismay moved to the refurbished Gate Cottage which had previously been two cottages, one accommodation for the butler and one was the billiards room. Here she continued to entertain her friends and relations both English and American. She never moved back to the Hall, and it stayed empty. She died in 1963
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Ismay Collection: Provenance ex-Haselbech Hall (Hazelbeech) Bridgewater armchair, Howard & Son, tapering square supports, replaced castors, stamped Howard & Son, Berners St. 1104-4429, covered in original Howard & Son ticking with monograms, loose seat and back cushions. Width 26ins. Height to back 33ins. To arms 17ins. Depth 26ins.
Photograph shows original William Morris Wandle covers on chairs.