Notable collection comprising large scrapbook, three personal diaries, autograph album, framed and embroidered needlework portrait, photographs and ephemera mainly documenting Trefusis’s early social life in Scotland and England.

Born at Fettercairn House, County of Kincardine, in Aberdeenshire. In August 1889, Fenella Hepburn Stuart Forbes Trefusis became sister-in-law to the future Queen Mother in 1914. Aspects of Fenella Bowes Lyon’s life were brought to public awareness due to a season four episode of the Netflix series, The Crown, which focused on her daughters Nerissa and Katherine, two of Queen Elizabeth II’s cousins born with severe disabilities and institutionalised in 1941 at Royal Earlswood Hospital in London.

Far from dismissing her as a negative genetic marker in the royal ledger, this collection documents a teenage Fenella’s entrance into Society. It comprises three diaries (one of which belonged to her sister Harriet) and a glorious and profoundly full scrapbook of casual photographs and autographs of friends, family and suitors, enriched with drawings, invitations, tickets and more, offering a fascinating insight into Britain’s elite families in the Edwardian era. Full of gossip, descriptions of crushes, wry observations and privileged woes, Fenella and her sisters’ diaries document key aspects of high-society girl culture. Fenella writes about her first dance and plans her imagined family life; she writes lists of girls' names for her future daughters, and makes a list of bridesmaids.

Beginning the year before her London debut, Fenella’s diaries and scrapbook offer a scenic tour through many outstanding historic properties in Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland (some now destroyed) for the autumn hunting season and winter balls and dances, and chart the events of the London Season in the summer and its numerous operas, exhibitions, races, regattas, and celebrations.

Key London events include her presentation at Court and her Society debut on May 22, 1908. From Fenella’s diaries we see her enthusiasm for participating, “I danced every dance, it was glorious.” She also takes private drawing lessons, the results of which can be seen in the scrapbook - and she also indulges in “spirit-writing,” highlighting the fad for seances still prevalent during this time.

In Fenella’s teenage diaries of 1907 and 1908 she is yearning for activity beyond Fettercairn, a wish fulfilled by visits to other estates, notably at Glamis Castle (where she attends the Forfar Ball with great enthusiasm after a prior engagement cancels) where she meets her future husband Jock Bowes Lyon. Her social life takes place in Scotland and England, with prolonged visits at Kinnaird Castle, Ardgowan, Camperdown, and Carberry Tower and Fenella frequently travelled to England for events, including the Hereford Ball attended by Gladstone.

The scrapbook illuminates the casual side of these visits, with house parties, hunts, and county balls. Among the most frequently mentioned are Scone Palace (seat of the Earls of Mansfield) and the Perth Hunt Ball, The Hirsel (seat of the Earls of Home) and the Berwickshire Hunt Ball, Goldings (home of the AbelSmith family) and the Hertford Ball, Heanton-Satchhville (a Trefusis family home), Glenferness (seat of the Earls of Leven and Melville), Glamis Castle (home of the Bowes-Lyons, Fenella’s future in-laws) the Forfar County Ball, Bishham Abbey (owned by the Vansittart Neale family but frequently let), Newton Don (country estate of the Balfour family), Wilton House (home of the Earls of Pembroke), Longford Castle (a seat of the Earls of Radnor), Boyton Manor (home of the Fane family, Fenella’s sister Harriet’s in-laws), and her own family home Fettercairn House.

The album and diaries offer an extremely detailed look at the lives of the young set of pre-war days - illustrated in collage by invitations, postcards and other ephemera, signed sketches and photographs, with some of the photographers being Fenella’s female friends. Photographs include those of a young Elizabeth, the future Queen Mother. It is an informal guest book for these occasions as well, with each documented event page in the album liberally sprinkled with signatures. The scrapbook is a fantastic resource for the sporting and daytime fashions of the day for both women and men. It also includes a brief reference to suffrage, with a cartoon of a suffragette included among the various sketches.

This collection was offered for sale at an auction of Royalty related items in England in 2018. When Fenella Bowes Lyon died in September of 1966 her probate listed Fergus Bowes Lyon, the 17th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne as executor, and these items may have left the family at that time or perhaps in 2016 when his son, the 18th Earl of Strathmore died. A lively and energetic group of items, this collection animates the early life of an overlooked woman in British history.

Scrapbook: Large folio 25 x 32 x 11 cm. 64 leaves of thick card, Bound in the original green half morocco. Each extensively labelled and illustrated with photographs, pen drawings, sketches, watercolours and the autographs of several hundred friends and family. An envelope has been bound into the end of the album holding a manuscript list of presents, a lodging receipt from Paris in 1931 and a number of photographs.

Diaries: All Frank Smythson’s, 13.5 x 11.5cm, gilt edges. Two signed and extensively filled in by Fenella for 1907 and 1908, navy and bright green respectively. A third dark green diary filled in from January through July 1908 by her sister Harriet, though unsigned.

Portfolio: 31 x 38cm tan ribbon bound portfolio with a group of approximately 80 variously sized photographs and negatives, of Fenella and various family members from early 1900’s through mid-century.

Embroidered portrait: fine oval silk needlework portrait of Fenella posing in an eighteenth century style, gilt framed and embroidered 'Fenella Lyon 1914' possibly made as a wedding gift.