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Dame Mary Quant died on 13th April 2023.

In October 1955, Mary Quant, her boyfriend, later husband, Alexander Plunket Greene, and Archie McNair, a former solicitor turned photographer, opened a dress shop called Bazaar on the King’s Road, Chelsea.  This was just ten years after the end of World War II, when a blitzed and broken London had hardly started rock ‘n’ rolling, let alone swinging.

On his 21st birthday, Plunket Greene, who died in 1990, had inherited £5,000. He joined financial forces with McNair to buy a lease on Markham House, 138 King’s Road, at its junction with Markham Square and almost next door to the Markham Arms pub.

McNair had already opened London’s second ever new-style coffee bar, called Fantasie, at Number 128. He also lived and worked at that address, where he ran a photographic studio and a team of photographers which included Anthony Armstrong-Jones.

The plan was that Number 138 would also have multiple uses: a jazz club in the basement, workshops on the upper floors and, at ground level, a shop. The shop, called Bazaar, was where Quant found fame. Born in Woolwich to Welsh parents who had moved to the capital from coal mining communities to become school teachers, she had met Plunket Greene at Goldsmiths College. She studied illustration and art, but fashion was her first love.

Mary Quant moved from a bedsit in Oakley Street to rooms above Fantasie, where she lived and worked on her own clothing designs. Both they and the shop were instant successes. Not everyone considers her to have invented the miniskirt, but no one doubts she was central to establishing its popularity. She would later attribute its creation to “the girls on the King’s Road” who demanded shorter and shorter hemlines. 

Quant arrived at a time when English girls left school and dressed like their mother. As George Melly put it: ‘Only tarts and homosexuals wore clothes which reflected what they were.’ Quant threw all the accessories into the dustbin and enabled young women to look young. Away went the white gloves and the hat and the matching bag and shoes. She was a precursor of sixties ideas and attitudes (for better or worse). 

King’s Road would become synonymous with Swinging London and the Markham Arms was a watering hole of the Chelsea Set of that period.

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The Chelsea Society announces with great regret the death on 7th February 2023 of one of its Council members, Fleur de Villers.

Fleur’s funeral service was held at Christ Church, Chelsea, SW3, on Wednesday 8th March 2023 at 11am

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There will be a concert in memory of Chelsea Society member John Rendall, who died this year.

The concert will be at The Chelsea Theatre, Worlds End on Wed. 25th May at 6.30 for 7pm.

For tickets, see www.taitmemorialtrust.org

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John Rendall, a member of The Chelsea Society and The Chelsea Arts Club, who lived at World’s End, and was an active supporter of The Chelsea Theatre, has died on 20th January 2022.  He is remembered as a Socialite and conservationist whose pet lion cub, Christian, purchased on a whim for 250 guineas in Harrods, became a Chelsea celebrity.

Rendall and his flatmate Anthony Bourke installed their new friend in the basement of Sophistocat, the pine-furniture shop at World’s End where they were both working. Public reaction was remarkably calm. “The idea of a lion in the King’s Road wasn’t that unusual at the time,” Rendall told the Evening Standard in 2009.

One day the actors Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, who had played the conservationists Joy and George Adamson in the lion-cub film Born Free (1966), called into Sophistocat and offered to help return Christian to the wild, just as they had done in the film with Elsa. In August 1970 Rendall and Bourke flew with Christian to Kora, the Adamsons’ nature reserve in Kenya, where he was gradually introduced to his natural habitat.  Rendall became a keen conservationist after releasing his lion into the wild in Kenya.

A year later Rendall and Bourke returned to film the documentary “Christian: The Lion at World’s End.” Not only did Christian remember them, but he introduced them to a pair of lionesses. The film clip of Rendall and Bourke returning to Kenya in 1971 resurfaced in 2008, becoming an internet sensation.

John Rendall was born near Sydney, Australia, in 1944. As a child he achieved local recognition as a boy soprano and later briefly toyed with training as an opera singer. While at university in Sydney he met Roddy Llewellyn, a landscape gardener who was later linked with Princess Margaret.

By 1975 Rendall was in a relationship with Sarah Ponsonby, an artist from an aristocratic family. They bought Surrendell, a derelict Jacobean farmhouse near Malmesbury, and established a commune and artists’ colony. Llewellyn was head gardener, and Princess Margaret and Helen Mirren came to stay.

Later, Llewellyn introduced John Rendall to Liz Brewer, the discotheque entrepreneur and etiquette expert.  They were married in 1978 but marriage was dissolved and Rendall is survived by their daughter, Tallulah, a musician. In 1987 he married Melanie Palmer. That marriage too was dissolved and he is survived by their sons, Maximillian, a magician, and Nick, an artist and scuba-diving instructor who lives in Australia.

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The Chelsea Society is very sad to hear of the death of Sarah Farrugia on 16^th February 2021 at the Royal Marsden Hospital.  She leaves a husband, and daughter (recently graduated from Edinburgh University) and will be much missed.

The funeral will be on 11th March at 12:15.  Due to COVID restrictions only close family members will attend.  Others may join by internet as follows:

Website	https://www.obitus.com/
Username	soro9284
Password	918787

Rather than sending flowers, Sarah was a long time, active supporter of a wonderful charity in London, The Feathers Association, and her husband has suggested donations to them in her memory.  If you would like to do this, the link is:  https://www.collectionpot.com/pot/113329/

You can read more about Feathers in that link.

Dr. James Thompson, Chairman of the Society, said “Sarah is very fondly remembered by Council members, for all she had done for the Society and for Chelsea as a whole. Many particularly recall the very large attendance at the Future of Chelsea meeting which she organised, which was one of the biggest which had ever come together to discuss a common strategy for Chelsea, and the impact Sarah made on Chelsea by engendering that debate. I particularly appreciated all the support she gave me when, as the incoming Chairman, I needed frequent help in working out how to use all the communication systems she had pioneered, and how kindly she guided me through those same instructions when I inevitably phoned up again sometime later to be reminded of the steps once again. I also know that, outside the Society, she had worked with other Chelsea organisations, including retailers, to encourage Chelsea-wide approaches to public events. She was always able to engage people to discuss issues, to recruit volunteers to those common projects, and to bring them to fruition.”

Damian Greenish (Chairman of the Society 2012-16) writes “Sarah was first Secretary to and then Vice-Chairman of the Society during my years as Chairman. She gave me fantastic support during those years, as well as in her own right championing Chelsea and supporting the people who make it such a unique place to live and work. She did some wonderful work on the various Exhibitions that we held and was a driving force behind the Society’s community engagement programme, particularly in organising our Future of Chelsea conference.”

Sarah Ingham (Editor of the Annual Report) got to know Sarah when she was recruited by her to the Society’s Council.  She says, “Chelsea and the people who live and work here have lost one of their champions. Sarah Farrugia was always trying to enhance local life, whether connecting people, improving the environment or reminding us of our heritage. Her initiative to commemorate Mary Quant with a purple plaque on the former site of her world-famous boutique in the King’s Road is one of many examples of what Sarah achieved. Self-effacing, softly spoken and so kind, Sarah’s untimely passing is a great loss to all who knew her.”

Michael Bach, former Chelsea Society Newsletter editor added:  “Sarah’s arrival was like a breath of fresh air – she wanted to bring the Society into the twenty-first century. Before she arrived we could barely communicate with our members, let alone the rest of the world other than by post. She commissioned the website, put the Society on social media – Twitter and Instagram – and started the much needed outreach for the Society to appeal to younger Chelsea residents. She assembled a group of younger people to blog and post pictures to appeal to people who were not already members. She realised that the Society needed to polish its image and market itself to a new generation.”

Michael Stephen, Vice-chairman of the Society, said “in my first year as Chairman of the Planning Committee, Sarah was very supportive.  Her knowledge of Chelsea, and of the members of the Society was an invaluable resource. She was always there when needed.  She helped to modernise the Society whilst keeping its essential character and traditions.”

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We were very sad to hear of the death of Hugh Krall on 26th April 2020.

Hugh was:

• a member of the Council of the Society 1981-2006
• secretary of the Society (1992-2002) dealing with correspondence and organising lectures
• secretary to the Society’s Planning Committee – he kept Minutes of the meetings and wrote all the letters of objection
• secretary to the Society’s Exhibition Sub-committees – producing all the display boards and setting up the exhibitions
• designer of the Society’s pictorial cards
• a member of the coordinating group of West London Traffic Reform campaigns against the motorway threat, and then our campaign for a Night and Weekend Lorry Ban, with Betty Woolf, Lesley Lewis, May Maguire, and Michael Bach
• an architect who designed and built his own house in Millmans Street, which was also his office.
• an artist, who learnt painting and woodcutting skills after retirement.

He held a number of exhibitions of pictures of the views across and along the Thames, including two in association with the Society.

There will be an obituary in the 2020 Annual Report.

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Nigel spent his earliest years in Scotland and, like many children brought up during the Second World War, saw little of his father who was overseas. On his return, Stenhouse senior was less than impressed by his son’s pronounced Glaswegian accent and declared, ‘Take that child away and give him elocution lessons!’ Friends recall Nigel’s kindliness to his father, particularly in looking after him in his later years.

In 1960, Nigel went up to Oxford to read Modern History at Merton College. He became a member of a dining society, the Ancien Regime. His friend from those undergraduate days, Maria Perry, said: ‘He was rather an aesthete and belonged to a group who arranged picnics’.  One picnic, held in the grounds of Bletchley Park, the top-secret centre of British war-time codebreaking, created a minor scandal.

Those taking part included the future Professor Julian Perry-Robinson, founder of the Harvard-Sussex peace project, John Oingeman and the Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd, the renowned collector and antiquarian scholar. ‘Nigel wore his hair slicked down and acquired the nick-name “Nig-Wig”. He was hotly pursued by the Bullingdon hearties. They didn’t wreck people’s rooms in those days, but he was ducked in a fountain in the middle of Tom Quad.

Like his friend, Lennox-Boyd, Nigel would go on to collect art, becoming an authority on English watercolours, buying and selling works on the European and English markets.

Damian Greenish, former Chairman of Chelsea Society said: ‘I was deeply saddened to hear of the death of Nigel Stenhouse. He had been a member of Council since 1989 and was Vice-Chairman for some 20 years. I was always grateful for his support and guidance during my period of office as Chairman. His love of Chelsea (particularly its connections with the river) and his knowledge of the Society and its history was wide and deep; he will be sorely missed.’

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Paul Aitkenhead was brought up in a 17th century house in the Lancashire town of Mellor.  His childhood prompted two of the great loves of his adult life: architecture and the Lancashire County Cricket Club.

Educated at Ellesmere College in Shropshire, he went on to train in hotel management. Stints in hotels in Edinburgh and Eastbourne were followed by the move to London, more specifically to Burton Court: he never left Chelsea again. By the early 1980s, he had switched from hotels to insurance, working for Standard Life. Through sheer doggedness, he was more successful than his contemporaries.

However, he took to going to Lord’s when sales meetings were taking place and was eventually fired.

Disenchanted with corporate life, he wafted around Chelsea for about ten years, adopting one scheme after another. One idea was to bring horse racing to Hyde Park. Although he found little enthusiasm for this plan, he did somehow manage to propose it to HRH the Princess Royal. His next move was to DEFRA and finally to the Royal Courts of Justice where he was a Judge’s clerk until a year before his death.

Paul’s love of architecture, a subject about which he was hugely knowledgeable, was accompanied by a love of detail. It was the details of Chelsea that became his focus as a member both of the Chelsea Society’s Council from 2012 to 2017 and of its planning committee. Indeed, it was his idea for the Society to award an annual prize for architectural excellence in Chelsea. Had he been on the judging panel, he would probably have favoured anything resembling a Palladian villa or a Georgian Manor House. He did not consider progress – in any form – a good thing.

To this end, he was frequently spotted (in his uniform of Puffa jacket – or safari jacket in summer – and bobble hat) walking around the Borough taking notes and of matters that he felt should demand the attention of the Society. Latterly, he focused on street furniture on the King’s Road: in some places in too great abundance and in others, not enough. Were you to ask him he could talk you down the entire road, noting each and every bus stop, bench and bin. He was also a keen photographer and the moment the editorial for the Annual Report was decided he would travel around Chelsea toking all the relevant shots, one of which made it onto the cover of the 2012 report.

Probably Paul’s most intense love was reserved for the game of cricket. He was a member of the MCC and played, with great pride, for The Antelopians. He could, and would, talk for hours about cricket and was always somewhat incredulous and amused at the lack of knowledge of others concerning his beloved teams. It was easy to tell when Lancashire had beaten, well anyone, but especially Yorkshire. The smile on his face lasted for days.

When not watching cricket, or visiting the stately homes of the Home Counties, Paul was to be found in some of the more obscure music venues listening to his heroes of progressive rock. In fact, the last gig he went to was a fortnight before he died. He managed to persuade one of the nurses at Trinity Hospice to take him to hear some esoteric band who were playing at Under The Bridge at Stamford Bridge.

I suspect he wasn’t entirely truthful about what the concert was, so she wrapped him up in a blanket and put him in a wheelchair and took him there. He loved it:  she didn’t!

Paul was an obsessive collector (the word hoarder might also be applicable) of many things and his Draycott Avenue flat was literally crammed with his collections. His main obsessions were antique books, sports memorabilia, vinyl records and CDs. His flat was not large and so the different collections were stacked in a myriad of piles, and his kitchen bore more than a passing resemblance to the most crowded orchid house at Kew. It might have looked like chaos to the outsider, but when Paul wanted a particular edition of a particular book, the instruction of fourth pile from the left, sixth book from the bottom, always yielded the subject of his search.

He treated his books with a reverence that was reserved only for his collections and spent hours not to mention a fair amount of money – having tattered, antique books restored. Once restored, he would commission a bespoke cover, to ensure they were never damaged again.

Paul was also known as a collector of antiquarian umbrellas. He could be found in pursuit of umbrellas at, for instance, Criterion Auctions in Upper Street, Islington and, when they needed repairs, he took them to that famous shop in New Oxford Street/High Holborn which has been selling walking sticks and the like since the 19th century.

Paul was a very private man who fought his cancer with every fibre. He bore all the curve balls that his cancer threw him (and it threw a couple) with dignity and fortitude. He died, very peacefully, in the Trinity Hospice. As his brother, Clive, so accurately stated, “He was of a forgotten era.”

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