Lady Desborough with her sons, Julian and Billy, WW1

Ettie, Lady Desborough, one of the great Edwardian society hostesses, who famously lost her two elder sons in the First World War. The inset picture shows the poet, Julian Grenfell, her eldest who was killed by a shell splinter in May 1915. The Tatler magazine claims that the figure on the left is his brother Gerald William ('Billy'), was killed in action in July 1915 and the boy on the right is Ivo. In fact, the same photograph, minus the inset was published in The Bystander in 1913 and describes the two boys as Julian (left) and Billy (right). It seems that this page shows Julian twice, once as a younger man with his mother and the inset picture shows him as a soldier. Billie is on the right we believe

Aristocrat Aristocrats Casualties Classes Desborough Ettie Gerald Grenfell Grenfells Poets Souls Tragic

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