Evelyn Gardner

Evelyn Gardner
Born
Evelyn Florence Margaret Winifred Gardner

(1903-09-27)27 September 1903
London, England
Died11 March 1994(1994-03-11) (aged 90)
Ticehurst, Sussex, England
Spouses
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(m. 1928; div. 1929)​
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(m. 1930; div. 1936)​
Ronald Nightingale
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(m. 1937)​
Children2, including Benedict Nightingale

Evelyn Florence Margaret Winifred Gardner (27 September 1903 – 11 March 1994) was the first wife of Evelyn Waugh. She was one of the Bright Young Things.[1]

Gardner was born on 27 September 1903 in London. She was the youngest of four daughters born to Herbert Gardner, 1st Baron Burghclere, and Lady Winifred Herbert.[2]

In the 1920s she came to be regarded as one of the Bright Young Things, a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of bohemian young aristocrats and socialites.[3] During this time she lived alone with Pansy Pakenham. It was such an unusual arrangement that the pair were interviewed by Alec Waugh in the spring of 1927 for an article on modern girls. The two girls invited Alec to a party given in Portland Place by the Ranee of Sarawak, and he brought along his brother Evelyn Waugh.[4] Before Waugh, Gardner had been engaged at least nine times, including to a soldier, a ship's purser, and a middle-aged divorcé.[1] Harold Acton said she was "a fauness, with a little snub nose". Her closest friend, Nancy Mitford, said she was "a ravishing boy, a page".[4]

On 27 June 1928, at St Paul's in Portman Square, Evelyn Gardner married Evelyn Waugh, against the wishes of her mother, who felt that Waugh lacked moral fibre and kept unsuitable company.[5] Harold Acton was the best man, Robert Byron, the writer and art critic, gave away the bride, and Alec Waugh and Pansy Pakenham were the witnesses.[4] The ceremony was performed by Rev. William Henry Aldis, a former missionary to Szechwan.[6] Among their friends, the couple quickly became known as "He-Evelyn" and "She-Evelyn".[7] After only one year of marriage, Gardner left Waugh for their mutual friend, John Heygate. She married Heygate in 1930, and they divorced 1936. In 1937 she married Ronald Nightingale, a civil servant, later an estate agent,[8][9] and they had one son, Benedict Nightingale, a drama critic, and one daughter, Virginia Nightingale, a landscape architect.[2][4]

After the divorce from Waugh, of all their friends, only Anthony Powell remained in contact with Evelyn Gardner, despite the fact that most of them had been Gardner's friends before Waugh. It has been suggested that the adultress Brenda Last in A Handful of Dust (1934) is based upon Gardner.[4]

Gardner died on 11 March 1994 in Ticehurst, East Sussex, and was buried in the graveyard of St Mary's Church, Ticehurst.[4]

  1. ^ a b Wilson, John Howard (1996). Evelyn Waugh: 1924-1966. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. p. 30. ISBN 9780838636701. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  2. ^ a b Carpenter, Humphrey (7 November 2013). The Brideshead Generation: Evelyn Waugh and His Friends. Faber & Faber. Kindle Edition. p. 493. ISBN 9780571309283. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  3. ^ Philip Hoare, ‘Tennant, Stephen James Napier (1906–1987)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004
  4. ^ a b c d e f Davie, Michael (1994). "Obituary: Evelyn Nightingale". The Independent. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
  5. ^ Hastings, Selina (1994). Evelyn Waugh: A biography. London: Sinclair-Stevenson. ISBN 1-85619-223-7.
  6. ^ Wilson, John Howard (2013). "The Curate who Married the Evelyns: W. H. Aldis (1871–1948)". Evelyn Waugh Studies. 43 (3): 20–21. ISSN 1058-8272. Retrieved 11 May 2023.
  7. ^ Stannard, Martin (2007). "Evelyn Arthur St John Waugh (1903–06)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition. Retrieved 30 October 2010. (subscription required)
  8. ^ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/he-evelyn-and-she-evelyn-how-my-mother-became-the-first-mrs-waugh-zfbjgnnjk
  9. ^ http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/5th-november-1994/54/the-first-mrs-evelyn-waugh