Lady Cynthia Mosley

Lady Cynthia Blanche ("Cimmie") Mosley (23 August 1898 – 16 May 1933) was a British politician of Anglo-American parentage and the first wife of fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, Bt. Born Cynthia Blanche Curzon at Kedleston Hall, she was the second daughter of Hon. George Curzon (later created Marquess Curzon of Kedleston in 1911) and his first wife, Mary Victoria Leiter, an American department-store heiress. As the daughter of a Marquess, she was styled Lady Cynthia. On 11 May 1920, Cynthia married the then-Conservative politician, Oswald Mosley. He was her first and only lover. After both joined the Labour Party in 1924, she was elected Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Stoke-on-Trent in 1929 and her husband was elected for Smethwick at the same time. After finding the Labour Party unsuitable, Oswald formed the New Party on 1 March 1931 and Lady Cynthia also joined. The party soon adopted fascist policies and became unpopular by the time of the sudden general election later that year. Subsequently, all of the party's candidates in the election (including Lady Cynthia) lost their seats, mostly to Conservative politicians. After their defeat, Lady Cynthia continued to support her husband in his fascist studies up until her untimely death at age 34 after an operation for peritonitis following acute appendicitis, in London. During Cynthia's marriage, her younger sister, Alexandra, was a mistress of Oswald, as was their stepmother, Grace Curzon, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston, while her elder sister, Irene, had an affair with him before he married Cynthia. In 1932 he began an affair with Diana Mitford whom he married in 1936. Diana was one of Britain's noted Mitford sisters, known for her friendship with Adolf Hitler,

References

• de Courcy Anne (2003) "The Viceroy's Daughters, The Lives of the Curzon Sisters", Harper Collins,
  ISBN 0-06-093557-X (biography), retrieved from publisher 3/14/2007 publisher's partial Abstract.
• Mosley (film), Review