TREE, the Lady Anne Evelyn Beatrice (nee CAVENDISH) 1927-2010

[Richard R]

From the Telegraph of 10 August 2010:

TREE
Lady Anne Evelyn Beatrice died 9th August aged 82, at home. Funeral to
be held St. Mary's Church, Compton Abbas, Shaftesbury, 3 p.m. on
Thursday 12th August. All friends welcome. No flowers. Donations to
Marie Curie Cancer Care to Merefield & Henstridge, Melbury Abbas,
Shaftesbury, SP7 0BU. 01747 853532.

She was the dau of the 10th Duke of Devonshire (1895-1950) and the
Lady Mary Alice GASCOYNE-CECIL (-1988, (Mistress Robes to The Queen
1953–66) dau of 4th Marquess of SALISBURY. She m 1949 Michael Lambert
TREE (1921-99), of that gentry family formerly of Dytchley Park. They
adopted two daus: Isabella Elizabeth Nancy (b 1964) m 1993 Sir Charles
Raymond BURRELL 10th Bt (b 1962, son of Sir (John) Raymond BURRELL 9th
Bt (1934-2008) and Rowena Frances dau of Michael H PEARCE of
Brackenhills, Inyanga, Rhodesia) and has a son (the ha Edward Lambert
b 1996) and a dau; Esther Anne Mary (b 1966) m 1992 James Michael
Beale CAYZER-COLVIN (b 1965, grandson of the LP Baron CAYZER
(1910-99)) and has issue.

She was sister of the 10th Duke of Devonshire and aunt of the present,
12th Duke.

[Turenne]

Ronald Tree, an Anglo American, bought Dychley (Ditchley) Park in 1933
from Viscount Dillon. I am still confused as to whether that makes the
Trees a gentry family or not.

I may have asked this question before but, is it the house or the
family that makes an individual 'gentry'?


Richard Lichten

[Michael Rhodes]

The Trees are included in BLG.

Lady Anne's father-in-law, Ronald Tree, was a uterine half-brother
of the 2nd Earl Beatty.

[Richard R]

I don't have a definitive answer either, but if there's a record of
the family in a recognised reference work (in this case the Trees are
in Burke's Landed Gentry's 1925 eidtion) then I'll describe it as
such. I no longer refer to 'landed gentry' families in any postings. I
simply refer to them as 'gentry' families.

[Turenne]

On 11 Aug, 08:03, Richard R <r_rut...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I don't have a definitive answer either, but if there's a record of
> the family in a recognised reference work (in this case the Trees are
> in Burke's Landed Gentry's 1925 eidtion) then I'll describe it as
> such.

You are probably right. It's best that we let Burke's be the ones who
decide who are gentry and who aren't!

Thanks

Richard

[Richard R]

Well, one of the ones at least. There are other reference works (eg,
Walfords, and the work of Fox-Davies on armorial families, the
published notices of the College of Arms and Court of the Lord Lyon
etc).

[Richard R]

A nice obit in today's Telegraph (and a picture with her sister and
the latter's lover John Betjeman):

Duke's daughter who became a prison visitor and persuaded inmates to
earn money from needlepoint
...Lady Anne could be fabulously outspoken. When Lady Diana Cooper was
entertaining Harold Macmillan to lunch at her London house in 1982,
Lady Anne noticed her hostess reach down for something in her handbag
on the floor. "Diana's got Uncle Harold by the privates and he doesn't
like it!" she called out across the table.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/7944867/Lady-Anne-Tree.html

> > Richard- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Michael Rhodes]

Lady Anne's Yorkshire Post Obit

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/obituaries/Lady-Anne-Tree.6486943.jp

the 10th Duke of Devonshire and aunt of the present Duke who, as
Marquess of Hartington lived at Bolton Abbey, has died aged 82 at her
home near Shaftesbury.

A campaigning philanthropist of the old school – privileged and
therefore influential, but also tireless – she founded the charity
Fine Cell Work.

It teaches needlework to prison inmates, mostly males as it happens,
and sells their products.

They do the work when they are locked in their cells, and a proportion
of what it earns is theirs to keep.

Starting in 1950 when she was 22, and for many years afterwards, Lady
Anne was a prison visitor, one of the prisoners she regularly saw
being the Moors murderer Myra Hindley.

Unlike Lord Longford, to whom she introduced Hindley and who
controversially supported her efforts to be paroled, Lady Anne
considered prison the best place for her.

A year ago she told an interviewer: "She wasn't fit to come out. I
don't believe she was safe.

"She didn't feel sorry and if you don't feel sorry, you can do
something again."

Her idea of giving prisoners work in their cells from which they could
earn money was completely against the rules, and Fine Cell Work only
came into existence because of her persistence over a period of 40
years.

In that time she pestered Government Ministers – Tory and Labour – but
only in 1991 did she wear down the resistance and get the permission
she needed from the Home Office.

Her charity now operates in some 26 prisons, some of the work being
commissioned and some being sold through prestige outlets such as the
shop at Prince Charles's Highgrove Estate.

Her experience as a prison visitor convinced her of the benefits of
giving inmates something absorbing and creative to do when they were
locked in their cells, as a contrast to their pointless prison jobs.

She settled on needlework as something for prisoners to do because she
did it herself, and she knew that men liked it because she had seen
them doing embroidery when she had worked in an Army canteen in
Eastbourne during the war.

When Lady Anne – her parents' fifth and youngest child – was born, her
father had not yet acceded to the dukedom. He did so 11 years later,
inheriting Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, the Bolton
Abbey estate and Compton Place at Eastbourne.

In 1950 he died suddenly at 55, while chopping wood, reports at the
time remarking that it was the most expensive wood ever chopped,
because of the death duties that followed.

Lady Anne married Michael Lambert Tree in 1949. They had two adopted
daughters.

[Richard R]

Lady Anne's Times obit appeared in yesterday's edition (23 August
2010) occupying three quarters of a page.

'Chatelaine of Mereworth Castle who dedicated much of her life to
improving the lot of prison inmates
'Anne Tree was born into one of the great families of England, became
chatelaine of a Palladian masterpiece, and was a painter and gardner
of note. But her true passion was prisons... . When, eventually, a
Conservative junior minister finally wrote telling her that prisoners'
creativitiy was well looked after by making cuddly toys at Christmas,
she sent a furious letter that included the memorable sentence: "It's
sanctimonious sh**s like you who've let this this country down." She
was no respecter of persons, never labelled people and was completely
uninterested in differences of background or age, a quality that made
her an ideal prison visitor.'

On Aug 23, 6:55 am, Michael Rhodes <mig73allenford2...@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

[Turenne]

On 24 Aug, 13:40, Richard R <r_rut...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>"It's sanctimonious sh**s like you who've let this this country down."

I wonder which sanctimonious sh** she was referring to; there are so
many...

Richard L

[Richard R]

The Independent have finally published an obit. Quite a good one:

Lady Anne Tree was a member of the upper echelons of the aristocracy,
mixing easily during her 82 years with the nobility and cultural
luminaries such as Cecil Beaton, John Betjeman and Lucian Freud. She
moved in a world of dukes and duchesses and the most powerful in the
land, living in stately homes. Yet she became familiar not just with
exquisite drawing rooms but with grim prison cells.
In a striking example of noblesse oblige she spent many years in the
company of prisoners, including a particularly notorious murderer. Far
from earnestly preaching reform she conceived a practical scheme which
has been judged a success by successive governments and prison
authorities and, most importantly, by prisoners themselves....
Anne Tree was born into a life of wealth, title and high social
connections. She began life as Lady Anne Cavendish, daughter of the
Marquis of Hartington, later Duke of Devonshire. Her mother, Lady Mary
Gascoyne-Cecil, was Mistress of the Robes to the Queen and a grand-
daughter of the Victorian prime minister Lord Salisbury. Anne's elder
brother married Kathleen Kennedy, John F Kennedy's younger sister.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/lady-anne-tree-prison-reformer-whose-fine-cell-scheme-enables-inmates-to-earn-money-from-needlework-2074051.html