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The Queen Mother’s Rebel Cousin

January 27, 2016
by Roger Mills

Roger Mills, author of Everything Happens in Cable Street, is currently researching the life of Lilian Bowes Lyon, a forgotten and barely-documented woman from an aristocratic background who committed herself to the East End in the Second World War. Some would describe her as ‘The Queen of the Slums,’ but Roger prefers to call her ‘The Queen Mother’s Rebel Cousin.’


This house at 141 Bow Rd is not remarkable other than because it survived Hitler’s Blitz and the ravages of post-war demolition, which saw traditional housing stock replaced with imposing tower blocks and maze-like estates. What is remarkable is the story of the woman who occupied this house during East London’s darkest hour. There is no plaque on the wall to tell her story to passers-by on the busy highway. There is no book to be read or documentary to be viewed. There is – in fact – very little of her story to be found anywhere. This is surprising, given her background, her voluntary and literary work, and her close connections to the Royal family.

One autumn day while wandering along the Charing Cross Rd, I noticed a slim volume of poetry in one of the second-hand bookshops. On seeing the cover I realised that the author, Lilian Bowes Lyon, must be part of the illustrious and well-known family of that name. What intrigued me was the title, Evening in Stepney. Stepney is my part of town. Why, I wondered, had the high-born poet chosen to write about East London? What I uncovered gave me some of the answers, none of which I expected.

Lilian was a first cousin of the Queen Consort of King George VI – better remembered today as that much-loved matriarch, the Queen Mother. Lilian was a novelist, poet and, at one point in her life, the mistress of the man who would go on to become Prince Charles’ personal guru-in-chief. Yet during the Second World War, despite being born into a wealthy and aristocratic family, she chose to work and live in the desperate, bombed-out streets of East London. Here, she befriended dock-workers and dustmen. Some would describe her as ‘The Queen of the Slums’ or ‘The Florence Nightingale of the East End.’ Yet today, she is totally forgotten. Over several decades of research into the history of East London, I have not found a single reference to her in many hundreds of histories, autobiographies and studies that I have read. Apart from one brief account, she appears only as a footnote in the histories of men. Am I alone in being curious that she remains an unknown figure?

Lilian Bowes Lyon was born, the youngest of seven, just before Christmas in 1895. Her parents were the Honourable Francis Bowes Lyon and Lady Anne Lindsay. As a child, she was waited on by servants at Ridley Hall in Northumberland and free to roam through acre upon acre of the estate’s dense woodland and landscaped gardens. She was five years older than her cousin, Elizabeth. Lilian joined the future Queen in Scotland’s Glamis Castle to help nurse injured servicemen when it was used as a convalescent home during the First World War. She later studied in London and at Oxford. She travelled extensively, spoke several languages and between the wars wrote two novels, the second under an assumed name. ‘Not because it was libellous or indecent or politically tendentious,’ her friend, William Plomer, wrote, ‘but because it did not conform to [her family’s] conventions either that she should write, or that she should write fiction, or that, if she did, she should write fiction suggesting that life was not a wholly comfortable proceeding.’

The books are those of a modern freethinker, with hints of taboo sexuality, and in The Spreading Tree, outright condemnation of a class-ridden England. Plomer wrote, ‘I used to tease her and call her a Bolshevik, but I am not sure that she was a political being at all… She was a poet with an acute response to the creative stirrings, however blind and dumb, of every human being.’ Lilian was ahead of her time – William Plomer’s homosexuality was fully accepted by her in a time of anti-gay prejudice, to the extent that she helped him financially to buy presents for his lovers. Bohemians’ begat beatniks begat Beatles and hippies. She never lived to see the sixties and the flowering of freedoms that she championed. But if she had, I like to imagine her, an eccentric old dame, turning up to do readings at basement jazz clubs, ‘happenings’ and Pop Art exhibitions. She was to be cheated out of that by a premature and tragic death.

The thirties saw her reputation as a poet grow with publications such as The White Hare, and Bright Feather Fading. That decade also saw her conduct an affair with the white South African adventurer, Laurens van der Post, nine years her junior and already married. Laurens would become a household name in later years, beguiling the Prince of Wales and the television viewing public with his tales of encounters with the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert and his wartime experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war.

Lilian became a member of the Women’s Voluntary Service before the outbreak of war and assisted in the evacuation of the capital’s children to the countryside. She also guided bombed-out and traumatised Stepney children to the Hampstead War Nursery, partly run by Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund. But her main association with the East End was to begin in a most unlikely place.

The Tilbury Shelter was formed from the arches, vaults and cellars of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway goods station and an adjacent eight-story warehouse. Not being fully underground, it made a strange refuge from the bombs of the Luftwaffe. Yet every night it was bursting at the seams with East Enders desperate to escape the raids. At the start of the Blitz, the Tilbury was run by two separate bodies. On one side, vaults requisitioned by the borough council were authorised for shelter use. The connected warehouse site, however, was still being used as storage space. When bombing began it became clear that the vaults would not contain the numbers trying to get into them, and consequently the desperate crowd – aided by members of the local Communist Party – broke into the restricted area. Evidence indicates that it was occupied by up to 16,000 people every evening.

In all the shelters there was concern about the spreading of disease – scabies, impetigo, tuberculosis, diphtheria – and there were reports of lice. But anecdotal and official sources indicate that the Tilbury was the most filthy and disgusting of them all. ‘Hell Hole’ was a common description for it. There were just twelve chemical toilets in a curtained-off area, with some overflowing buckets for the children. As cold as the night might be, the temperature would rise, bringing about a foul stench from thousands of bodies who lacked any washing facilities. And at the heart of it, a mountain of rancid margarine, abandoned when the warehouse was overrun.

Lilian was a regular in the shelter, probably taking refuge when carrying out her work and, given her position in the WVS, almost certainly assuming a supportive role there. Eventually, the soiled margarine was removed and a clean-up operation begun when the situation – and the stench – could no longer be tolerated. So notorious was the Tilbury that it became a sort of subterranean cause celèbre, with artists such as Henry Moore and Edward Ardizzone joining the crowds. Also documenting the scene was the self-taught Rose L. Henriques, wife of Basil Henriques, founder of the local Oxford & St George’s Jewish Boys’ Club. Although she is known for philanthropic work, Rose’s paintings are less well remembered.

During 1942, Lilian Bowes Lyon came to live in Bow and composed her epic poem, Evening in Stepney. A brief entry about Lilian’s time here appears in The Queen Mother’s Family Story, written by James Wentworth Day and published in the sixties. It contains an interview with Lilian’s wartime housekeeper, Ellen Beckwith. Ellen recalls a royal visit – ‘The Queen Mother came one day. No fuss. She had a cup of tea with Lilian in the flat, and Lilian told her just what we needed down here,’ Other anecdotes feature the Duke of Kent dropping by and Lilian summoning Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, to Bow Rd to ‘give him a good talking-to and just show him what Bow needs.’ Lilian supposedly obtained a direct line to the Queen’s rooms at Buckingham Palace to berate one of the ladies-in-waiting for lack of free food and hot drinks during the VE Day celebrations. Ellen also recounts an incident of how during a bomb blast, Lilian was kicked in the leg by a hysterical woman. The inference is that the injury exacerbated a long-term diabetic condition. Lilian was resident in Bow until at least February 1945, but when her physical condition deteriorated she found herself swept back into the world of privilege she had attempted to escape.

I tracked the locations of Lilian’s life – the site of Tilbury Shelter, 141 Bow Rd, the series of West London houses where she spent her last days recovering from a series of grisly operations and her final dwelling in luxurious Brompton Sq. In constant pain, with both legs amputated, Lilian passed away there in the summer of 1949, yet continued to write her poetry until the end.

Later, I made a pilgrimage to the place of her birth in Northumberland and her final resting place. I was granted access by Durham University Library to her handwritten letters to William Plomer. Perhaps the most significant discovery I made was an article – she refers to it as a ‘letter’ – that William urged her to write about her time in, as she calls it, ‘dock-back-street-canal-and-sewer-land.’ The piece remains unpublished since it appeared in 1945. In it, she writes passionately about the lie of the ingrained class system in the ‘Two Nations’ of England and how social change could come swiftly, ‘if the whole lot of us faced the lie as we have faced the War.’

Her focus was the hardship faced by ordinary working class people, especially women and children. ‘The synthesis Marx had in mind, the social re-organisation on a higher level … depends on children,’ she wrote. ‘In one district here, where the Great North Sewer comes out, a district of gluey canals, of grinding machinery, of smells that are sour or sweetish according to which factory’s boilers were last cleaned, there is a children’s play-centre, where I often go, because it helps me believe that even the grimiest cocoon can’t kill the spirit of man. Except for this little centre … the children have nowhere to play, except the street. No room at home, often two large families divide the home between them, rents being high and the shortage of accommodation acute.’

The ‘letter’ tantalisingly refers to a diary kept by Lilian. It would be a fascinating read, possibly containing more of her views on politics, her local contacts and of another affair that she conducted with a married Jewish doctor while in East London. What happened to the diary on her death? Enquiries made to the highest family in the British social scale have brought about the reply that no archive relating to Lilian Bowes Lyon exists. The Royal circle tend to keep their secrets. I wonder if because of her left-leaning views, her romances, her circle of outsiders and her questioning of the accepted social order, Lilian is one of those secrets?

Lilian Bowes Lyon remembered outside the house where she lived 1942-45

Roger Mills at 141 Bow Rd

An extract from

EVENING IN STEPNEY

by Lilian Bowes Lyon

The circle of greensward evening-lit,
And each house taciturn to its neighbour.
The destruction of a city is not caused by fire;
What many have lost begets a ghostlier heritage
Or hails the unknown horizon; workaday street
A travel-ordained encounter, the breakable family
Fortified in defeat by the soldering air.
The destruction is in the rejection of a common weal;
Agony’s open abyss or the fate of an orphanage,
Mass-festering, mass-freezing or mass-burial,
Crime’s worm is in ourselves
Who crumble and are the destroyer.

Time to repair the infirmary soon, for tissue torn;
To plan the adroit, repetitive memorial.

The Tilbury Shelter, bombed second time, by Rose Henriques, 1941

The Tilbury Shelter in Stepney by Edward Ardizzone, 1941

The Tilbury Shelter in Stepney by Henry Moore, 1941

You may also like to read about

Rose Henriques Paintings

Everything Happens In Cable St

39 Responses leave one →
  1. Glenn permalink
    January 27, 2016

    Fascinating! Thanks for the information.

  2. January 27, 2016

    Good to learn about this very strong minded and courageous lady. The art shown is new to me, thanks for sharing. Valerie

  3. January 27, 2016

    Well written all the ‘known’ strands brought together beautifully. This is fact not fiction still more of her life to be told when archives will allow, for this ‘woman of the people’. Roger I am sure we would like to hear from you again soon please. John.

  4. Judith Standing permalink
    January 27, 2016

    What a fascinating story. It is so sad that Lilian’s story has been buried for so long and oh to read that diary! What a tale she must have told! Thank you for this wonderfully tantalising peek at the story of a woman who, today, would be praised to the skies for her wonderful work. Thank you Lilian, too.

  5. January 27, 2016

    Lillian Bowes Lyon, a fascinating read and what a great pity that there isn’t more to read!!! What a very interesting and outward living woman she must have been. I’d add her to my list of people I’d like to meet.
    People like her should be admired and respected instead of because of background etc. Be “filed away”.

  6. Sarah permalink
    January 27, 2016

    Lovely to read. Thank you for researching Lilian’s story The royal family certainly do like to keep their secrets. Did you know about two other Bowes-Lyon cousins, Nerissa and Katherine, who were committed to a mental asylum, recorded as dead and never visited by their family? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bowes-Lyon

  7. January 27, 2016

    Fascinating. Thanks for unearthing….

  8. Marnie Sweet permalink
    January 27, 2016

    What an amazing woman, unknown then discovered and written about by Roger Mills, with continuing research by you, then shared with us. I would like to have had a cuppa with her, Lilian who bravely marched to the tune of her own drummer in disapproving times.

    Such beautiful accompanying illustrations. And what is the story of Rose Henriques, pray?

  9. Carolyn permalink
    January 27, 2016

    A fascinating piece of research. It would make a great book. Thank you for sharing this with us.

  10. Cate permalink
    January 27, 2016

    Fascinating, beautifully written and totally intriguing as to why we know so little……
    Thank you.

  11. Vicky permalink
    January 27, 2016

    Excellent research and beautifully written . Wonderful to read about women and their achievements, especially those who are forgotten.

  12. January 27, 2016

    Marnie Sweet, above, asks about the little-known painter Rose L. Henriques. A brief biographical essay and more of her splendid paintings – including those of the Tilbury shelter – feature in the slim paperback ‘Stepney in Peace & War: The Paintings of Rose L. Henriques’, published by Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives, 2014. It’s still in print, I believe, and available from the library in Bancroft Road, Mile End.

  13. gabrielle permalink
    January 27, 2016

    We’re her sisters the two Bowes-Lyon’s who were incarcerated in mental institutions their whole lives? Wonder if they were also considered ‘rebels’? Coincidence how the rebellious royals seem to have untimely exits and conveniently airbrushed out of history. Shame, and shame on us for allowing such division of ‘class’ and wealth on the backs of badly paid workers, to remain to this day.

  14. Linda Granfield permalink
    January 27, 2016

    Wonderful! And I hope a book about Lilian is in the works.
    Regarding the search for more Lilian papers: might she be related to Rugby headmaster of the past, P.H.B. (Hugh) Lyon (1893-1986)? I recall he was also somehow related to the Queen Mother. Cousin?

    I notice that the Imperial War Museum has Hugh Lyon’s First World War papers (soldier, POW)–perhaps Lilian’s papers will show up at the IWM? (you’ve probably already checked all of this out!)

    thank you!

  15. January 27, 2016

    Interesting.

  16. Deborah Henkin permalink
    January 27, 2016

    She also sponsored the Kindertransport which was organized by Nicholas Winton to save Jewish children from the Nazis. Too bad there is so little known of her.

  17. martin permalink
    January 28, 2016

    Another gem, thanks. The Bowes Lyon family home is in Richmond N. Yorkshire. Now a museum and a very fine house indeed. Always worth a visit if you’re in the neck of the woods.
    http://www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk/

  18. Teresa Stokes permalink
    January 28, 2016

    That was absolutely fascinating. I too wonder about the diary, and I immediately checked out her record in the Probate Calendar: Lilian Helen Bowes Lyon of 35 Brompton Square London SW3, spinster, died 25 July 1949. Probate London to Glyns Executor and Trustee Company and Keith Miller Jones Solicitor. Effects £65,869 2s 8d.

    I wonder who got all that money – family, or – more likely knowing her – something charitable. Anyone can get a copy of a will for a small fee. Her will would show who her heirs were, who might have still got the diary.

    To Gabrielle, the girls who were in mental institutions were her first cousins, not sisters, and were not incarcerated the entire lives: Nerissa was 22 and Katherine 15 when they were “put away”. Another cousin wrote about playing with them as children, said they were delightful little girls but never learned to speak.

  19. Jane B permalink
    January 28, 2016

    GA, less gentle in action but as authoritative and influential in word, your new-found Queen is no doubt someone — fellow writer, social commentator and the most human of beings — with whom you have a deep affinity, the quality of your writing telling us so, determinedly and with such admiration and solidarity across time.

    Thank you so much, for a brilliantly told, socially insightful and historically important story, and specifically for the name of a woman and that of a ‘letter’ book that may yet help me bring a certain royal to East London to honour if not complete the work of another. [I too am not adverse to slipping a hand-written note in at St James Palace or at other sites down The Mall!]

    My current, because-it’s-not-Past project — they then as us now — forever reminding me of how many hours of research and contacts of contacts it no doubt takes to bring your biographies-untold to the pages of Spitalfields Life and therefore to all of us 🙂

    It’s an extraordinary generosity, each and every day, that any of us would struggle to reciprocate, other than by taking the inspiration and doing ‘something’ with it true to the spirit of man and place 🙂

    And so The Building Exploratory’s Panarama project [just in case 🙂 ]

    “Celebrating the 6km road through Whitechapel, Mile End and Bow”

    141 Bow Road:
    1928-1930 Bow & Bromley Labour Party
    1928 Miss Makel, Piano Teacher
    1911 James West (residential)
    1870 Thomas Keohan (residential)

    http://panoramaeast.org.uk/panorama/north/439

    — and yes, a huge gap, where Lilian’s name if not story should be

  20. January 31, 2016

    Absolutely fascinating. What a shame that there’s nothing much to read about Lilian Bowes Lyon, because she sounds like a very interesting woman.

  21. Evelyn permalink
    January 31, 2016

    Deepest thanks O Knight for this treasure-trove about this remarkable woman ahead of her time, and her friend William. How about a book about William and one about Lilian? Bestsellers they could be. I hope you follow-up in obtaining her will and trying to locate her diary. You just never know, it might still exist!

    Thanks again for fighting Boris. With love, Evelyn in greater Minneapolis

  22. Ian Silverton permalink
    February 1, 2016

    Great read,great lady,nothing changes in the UK,the leaders still treat the people in the poor areas of the UK like dirt,even during the war it seems,makes me wonder why,people still allow them TO ????

  23. Kellie permalink
    February 29, 2016

    I enjoyed your article.

  24. July 17, 2016

    Great article and well researched. , Lilian Bowes-Lyon seems so overlooked. Have managed to get hold of her ‘Collected Poems-introduced by C.Day Lewis’, from 1948.
    Anyone know where I can find an online photo of Lilian Bowes-Lyon ? Thanks.

  25. Howard Watson permalink
    August 1, 2017

    I wrote a piece, Saint and Scarecrow, about her life and work, and it’s on the web somewhere, plus Bloodaxe Books are publishing an anthology of writers from the North-East and using a near handful of her verse, so check them out!! Most of her work was published by Jonathan Cape, as well as a novel, some of her work is also produced in a series of anthologies, The Best Poems of…, published in the 30’s, as in The Best Poems of 1938.

  26. Richard Jackson permalink
    August 7, 2017

    Lovely to see this article. Lilian has been my ‘adopted’ forgotten heroine from history since finding an Edwardian autograph album containing two handwritten poems when she was 13. I’ve been collecting her poems and books, letters ever since. Lilian also sponsored refugee children during the war to find safety in England.

  27. Robert Crossley permalink
    October 4, 2017

    I very much look forward to your biography of Lilian Bowes Lyon; this article is an intriguing foretaste of what is to come. I wrote a few pages about her in my 1994 biography: Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future. Some of her letters to Stapledon are in the Stapledon archive at the University of Liverpool.

  28. February 14, 2018

    I came across Lilian Bowes Lyon when researching one of my relatives (Eva Glasnerova) who was a Czech refugee in London during the war. She was on the executive committee of the Czechoslovak British Friendship Association and I noticed that Lilian B-L was one of its patrons, so googled her to see what was known about her. She sounds like an interesting woman.

  29. fatima ali permalink
    August 4, 2018

    Bless her she obviously was captivated by the East End as its people I think I have heard many Norther Somalis speak about her and my dad said she ate in his Restaurant the Silver Eagle in Lemon St london E.1. She said that the Somalis were very handsome regal my father told me she was very very well spoken byt humble and down to earth bless het always I am my fathers daughter Fatima anc my father Ahmed and my gorgeous mother Janet Hassan
    she was as Somalis said very polite and quite quiet and slightly eccentric in a way but always nicely dressed and came from good stock if you get the expression.

    RIP lilian Bowles Ameen

  30. Wendy Moore permalink
    March 29, 2019

    Great story. Heard about her today for the first time at the new Women of Glamis exhibition at Glamis Castle. When is your book coming out? Best wishes, Wendy

  31. Diana Fainberg permalink
    February 4, 2020

    Mr. Mills, I was very interested to find your article. I learned about Lilian Bowes-Lyon when going through my father’s wartime papers after he passed away. He and his brother were German-Jewish refugees in 1939, and she was very helpful to him in trying to arrange visas to get his parents out of Germany. The war declaration interrupted that plan, but she continued to assist until my grandparents were able to leave for the US. I have several letters from her, and she was very generous and encouraging during that difficult time.

    I look forward to your biography.
    Diana

  32. Jenny Barrow permalink
    October 28, 2020

    A fascinating article, and so sad that the Royal Family don’t honour her! Although I don’t think she would care, being morally above privilege.
    Thank you Lilian !

  33. Helen Lisl Muir permalink
    December 4, 2020

    I found this fascinating article because I have acquired a copy of the White Hare once the property of the writer David Garnett. It has his bookplate and the letter she wrote him from Ridley Hall thanking him for his help, for what it does not say.
    There must be a book in your research .

  34. March 14, 2021

    My dear friend Margaret Hemming who died some 35 years ago, nursed Lillian Bowes-Lyon until she died, they were close friends. I wish there was some record of this!

  35. Alicia Pratt Mayer permalink
    August 27, 2023

    Hello, I have some information about Lilian Bowes and would love to chat with you. Would you please contact me per EMail. I have found some books belonging to her with insprictions.

  36. August 29, 2023

    A fascinating story of a remarkable woman. My interest was triggered by reading her poem “The White Hare” in Philip Larkin’s anthology, The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century verse, first published in 1973.
    Many thanks.

  37. Julie Sanders permalink
    November 3, 2023

    So very pleased to read all your research concerning Lillian Bowes Lyon. Seems such a great shame that no tv documentary has ever been made about this amazing lady & her wonderful service to so many not to mention her wonderful poetry.
    A dear late friend of mine knew Lil B
    Very well, such an amazingly brave lady who suffered so much near the end of her short lived life. I hope to purchase your book & her poetry books. Thank you.

  38. Key Straughan permalink
    November 26, 2023

    Thank you for this. I read of Lilian in the Edith Sitwell bio by Richard Greene. Some of her letters to Edith are quoted there.

  39. Hannah Wauchope permalink
    February 7, 2024

    The BBC should make a programme about her , like they did with other “discarded” members of the royal family.
    I am glad I came across this article, a remarkable woman!

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