DELVES BROUGHTON, Helen, Lady (Helen Mary nee SHORE) 1930-2025
Richard R
From the Telegraph of 24 Oct 2025: DELVES BROUGHTON Helen, Lady. Died peacefully on 17th October 2025, aged 95 years. Funeral Service at Salisbury Crematorium on Wednesday 12th November 2025 at 12 noon. All are welcome to attend. No flowers but donations, if desired, to St John's Church, Doddington, Cheshire c/o Will Case and Partners, 31 Sailsbury Street, Amesbury…
She was d of John SHORE of Wilmslow, Cheshire. She m 1955 as his 2nd wife Maj Sir Evelyn 12th Bt 1915-93 s of Maj Sir Henry John DELVES BROUGHTON 11th Bt 1883-1942 and his 1st w Vera Edyth 1894-1968 d of Boscawen Trevor GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN 1860-1941 scion of the JONES gentry family of Godmond Hall and the DUFF of Meldrum Scots gentry family and Agnes Lillian BELLERS 1866-1956, and had a son and three daus.
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Helen, Lady Delves Broughton, Britain’s youngest female barrister in the 1950s
After she stopped practising at the Bar she put her legal experience to use as a Justice of the Peace
Helen, Lady Delves Broughton, who has died aged 95, was Britain’s youngest woman barrister in the early 1950s before giving up her promising career to marry Sir Evelyn Delves Broughton, 12th Bt.
Appearing at Aylesbury Crown Court the day after she was called to the Bar in 1951, Helen Shore, as she then was, secured the acquittal of a tramp accused of stealing a ham sandwich through an open window, successfully arguing that there was no case to answer.
“She may have only been called the night before,” said the judge to the jury, “she may be only a legal stripling, but you’ve seen with what dexterity she’s handled the case! No case to answer.” All the jury then came and shook her hand [….]
Her life after the Bar was to be overshadowed by the death of her only son, John Evelyn, heir to her husband’s baronetcy, in an accident in 1964 when he was two, and later by the suicide of their daughter, Isabella Blow, the flamboyant and influential fashion stylist and muse to the likes of Alexander McQueen and Philip Treacy, in 2007.
She was born Helen Mary Shore on March 16 1930, the daughter of John Shore, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, whose father had established a successful wholesale greengrocery business in Manchester [….]
She remained at Lord Hailsham’s chambers until 1955, when she married Sir Evelyn Delves Broughton and ceased practising at the Bar. Her husband, who had recently divorced his first wife, had succeeded to the baronetcy in 1942 when his father Sir “Jock” Delves Broughton took an overdose of morphine shortly after being sensationally acquitted of the murder of Lord Erroll in Kenya, a cause célèbre immortalised by James Fox’s book White Mischief (1982).
In the 1930s Sir Jock had sold off most of the Delves Broughtons’ 15,000 acres straddling Cheshire and North Staffordshire to settle gambling debts, and the family seat, Doddington Hall, near Nantwich, became a girls’ school after the war [….]
Their first daughter, Isabella, was born in 1958, followed by Julia in 1961 and then John Evelyn, the longed-for son and heir, in 1962. On September 12 1964, when John was two and a half, he choked on a biscuit and fell into a shallow ornamental pond in the garden. As one friend later remarked: “Everything went wrong for the family after the death of that little boy.”
Helen Delves Broughton later gave birth to a third daughter, Lavinia, in 1965, but her marriage to Sir Evelyn never seemed to recover from the trauma of John Evelyn’s death. In the early 1970s she began to spend more time at their London flat in Cadogan Square, yearning for a more culturally and intellectually fulfilling milieu. They eventually divorced in 1973, after which they shared custody of the children.
Helen Delves Broughton never returned to practise at the Bar, but she did renew her close links with the Inner Temple, while also serving as vice president of the Bar Lawn Tennis Association for more than 50 years.
She and her eldest daughter Isabella did not have an easy relationship, but her suicide was none the less heartbreaking. Further profound sadness was to follow, with the death from cancer in 2024 of her middle daughter, Julia, an art expert and philanthropist, who had been married to Hans Rausing since 2014.
The Julia and Hans Rausing Trust recently made a substantial donation towards the restoration fund for Temple Church, in honour of Helen Delves Broughton’s trailblazing early career as a woman at the Bar.
She is survived by her third daughter, Lavinia Verney.
Helen Delves Broughton, born March 16 1930, died October 17 2025