7748

Lady Rhys Williams, née Juliet Glyn 1925

Half-length to the right, wearing a grey shot silk stole over her black dress, a pearl necklace and pearl earrings

Oil on canvas, 85.1 x 62.3 cm (33 ½ x 24 ½ in.)

Inscribed lower right: de László / 1925

Laib L11731(672) / C28(8)  Lady Williams

NPG Album 1919-25, p. 9

Sitters’ Book II, f. 44: Juliet Williams May 15th 1925.

Private Collection

De László had previously painted a half length portrait of Lady Rhys Williams in 1924 [7744], which was rejected by the sitter. The artist painted numerous portraits of other members of the sitter’s family: her mother, Elinor Glyn, was painted twice in 1914 [5361] [5359], and again in 1927 [5363], her aunt Lady Duff Gordon [13201] in 1913, her sister, Margot, Lady Davson, in 1923 [4650] and 1924 [4643] and her grandmother, Mrs. Kennedy, in 1915 [5865]. The sitter was herself a competent artist and made an accomplished copy of her grandmother’s portrait.

Juliet Evangeline Glyn was born 17 December 1898 at Sheering Hall, near Harlow, Essex, the youngest daughter of the barrister Clayton Glyn (1857-1915) and his novelist wife Elinor Sutherland (1864-1943). She was educated at The Links, Eastbourne and finished her formal education in Paris after the family moved to France in 1913. At the outbreak of the First World War, she returned to London and, pretending to be 18, joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment with her sister Margot. She worked as an operating nurse at the London War Hopsital, where she met her future husband Lieutenant-Colonel Rhys Williams (1865-1955). He was son of Judge Gwylym Williams and his wife Emma Williams, of Miskin Manor, Llantrisant, Vale of Glamorgan. The couple married in 1921 and had four children, Susan (born 1923), Glyn (born 1924), Brandon (born 1927) and Elspeth (born 1937).

In the latter part of the war Juliet transferred to the War Office Intelligence Department before becoming one of three secretaries to the War Cabinet Demobilisation Committee in 1919. She acted as private secretary to her husband, then Parliamentary Secretary for Transport, in 1920.

Juliet was actively involved in social and medical work, giving particular attention to maternity services and child welfare. She was honorary treasurer of Queen Charlotte’s Hospital Anaesthetic Fund, honorary secretary of the Joint Council of Midwifery, and founder member of the The National Birthday Trust,^[1] which campaigned for the reduction of maternal mortality, pain relief in childbirth, and better nutrition for mothers. In 1937 she was made a DBE in recognition of her part in drafting the Midwives Act, 1936.

Juliet served as a Staff Officer in the Women’s Auxilliary Air Force from 1940 on bomber stations in Norfolk, but left to be Commandant of a convalescent hospital for soldiers at her family home, Miskin Manor in Wales. While managing the hospital she published two works advocating and providing detailed plans for the development of a welfare state, Something to Look Forward to (1943) and Family Allowances and Social Security (1944). The second was the first pamphlet advocating a free health service. She was awarded Dame Grace of the Order of St. John, in 1942.

The sitter was actively involved in Liberal Party politics and twice unsuccessfully stood as a candidate for Parliament, Pontypridd in 1938 and Ilford North in 1945. After the war she contributed to the governmental move towards a united Europe, acting as secretary of the economic section at the Hague Congress of May 1948. Her intellect was widely admired and respected; Sir John MacTaggart, President of the Economics Research Council, described her as: “the cleverest woman in England.” Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, noted that she combined: “a remarkable knowledge of technical economics with an almost prophetic power of grasping the long term implications of large questions.”

Juliet died in London on 18 September 1964. The Times obituary described her as: “a tremendous dynamo. Her life was bound up with the causes that she had at heart. Although so earnest, she was always gay and easy and companionable.”^[2]

SOURCE: Dictionary of National Biography

KF 2013