Cicely Hilda Farmer

Cicely Hilda Farmer
Farmer in 1913
Born	1870 One Tree Hill, Auckland, New Zealand
Died	7 May 1955 Chelsea, London, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Novelist
Spouses	Warington Baden-Powell ​ ​ (m. 1913; died 1921)​ Montagu Monier-Williams ​ ​ (m. 1927; died 1931)​
Relatives	Baden Powell (father-in-law) Monier Monier-Williams (father-in-law)

Cicely Hilda Farmer (1870 – 7 May 1955) was a New Zealand-born British novelist and travel writer.

She was born in One Tree Hill, Auckland in 1870, the daughter of James and Julie Farmer.^[1]

Warington Baden-Powell, founder of the Sea Scouts, came ashore in New Zealand when his father Prof Rev Baden Powell died, and retrained there as a lawyer specialising in maritime law.^[1] He met Farmer in Auckland and they became secretly engaged in 1893.^[1] Farmer was presented at court in London as a debutant in 1893, and returned to New Zealand, where she lived until she married in 1913.^[1]

20 years after becoming engaged, she married Warington Baden-Powell at All Saints Church, Knightsbridge (now the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God and All Saints) on 13 September 1913.^[2] Her wedding dress of white silk satin, made by Reville and Rossiter of Hanover Square, is in the permanent collection of the V&A in London.^[2] Also included are the train, shoes (by C. Moykopf, Burlington Arcade), stocking, gloves and a headdress of white ostrich plumes for when it was worn for a May Court in 1914.^[2]

Château Royal de Collioure in 2005, her home from 1927 to 1931

Baden-Powell died in 1921. In 1927 she married Montagu Sneade Faithfull Monier-Williams (1860–1931), British surgeon, expert figure skater and writer, a widower with two children, and the son of Monier Monier-Williams.^[3][4][5] After the wedding they retired to an artistic commune at the Château Royal de Collioure in Collioure in the French Pyrenees close to the Spanish border, where he was a keen viticulturist.^[5]

Artemis Weds was reviewed by The New York Times.^[6]

In 1939, by deed poll, she renounced the surname Monier-Williams and was henceforth Cicely Hilda Baden-Powell again.^[7] At the time, her address was Milden House, Dixwell Road, Folkestone, Kent.^[7]

She died in Chelsea, London on 7 May 1955, and was buried in the Farmer family plot at St Andrews Cathedral's Eastern Cemetery, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, alongside her first husband.^[8]

Publications

Novels

• The Painted Show, 1924
• Waters of Fayle, 1925
• The Bending Sickle, William Morrow, New York, 1931
• Anna, Faber and Faber, London, 1931
• Artemis Weds, William Morrow, New York, 1932, dust jacket by Paul Wenck.^[9]

Non-fiction

• Dragons and a Bell, 1931 (about a trip through China, Malaysia, Burma, and Sri Lanka)
• Sunrise Over India, Victor Gollancz, 1934 (another travel book)

References

1. Bird, Ron. "NZ SEA SCOUTS JOIN 100TH COMMEMORATION" (PDF). Professional Skipper. No. November/December 2009. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
2. "Wedding Dress 13 September 1913 (worn)". V&A. 13 September 1913. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
3. "Monier-Williams, Montagu Sneade Faithfull, (1860–1931), physician and surgeon". National Archives. Retrieved 13 February 2024.
4. "Montagu Monier-Williams, The Doctor Who Treated Figure Skating". skateguard. Retrieved 13 February 2024.
5. "Obituary". BMJ. Vol. 2, no. 3681. 25 July 1931. p. 171. PMC 2315697. PMID 20776306.
6. WALLACE, MARGARET (17 July 1932). "English Society in the Years Since 1925; ARTEMIS WEDS. By Cicely Farmer. 314 pp. New York: William Morrow & Co. $2.50". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
7. "London Gazette" (PDF). 17 March 1939. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
8. "England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837–2007". familysearch.org. Retrieved 14 February 2024.
9. Salisbury, Martin (2017). The illustrated dust jacket, 1920–1970. London. pp. 186–187. ISBN 9780500519134. Retrieved 6 February 2024.