was known as a great beauty of her age – a captivating figure celebrated for her poise, exquisite taste and sense of style. But many of the same qualities were also possessed by her mother-in-law, Anne Parsons, Countess of Rosse, who died 31 years ago this week. Born in London in 1902, Anne Messel was the only daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Leonard Messel and his wife, Maud, the daughter of the celebrated draughtsman, Edward Linley Sambourne.
The family’s artistic streak was inherited by Anne’s brother, the leading stage designer Oliver Messel, and her son, the society photographer and filmmaker , later the 1st Earl of Snowdon, who was married to Princess Margaret from 1960-1978. (Indeed, it was that launched the young Armstrong-Jones on his path to stardom). Anne’s great-granddaughter graced the cover of the May issue of .
Raised in the bucolic surroundings of the Nymans estate in Sussex, Anne made her debut in society in 1922. Widely praised for her poise and sense of style (and a frequent fixture in the newspapers of the day), the 20-year-old would have been an enticing match for a well-born young bachelor looking for a wife. However she earned the nickname ‘Tugboat Annie’ because she ‘drifted from peer to peer’, Hugo Vickers wrote in the .
Anne mingled with Cecil Beaton ( ) and the rambunctious Bright Young Things, although Vickers reports that the photographer chose to ‘loathe’ her ‘on account of his jealousy of her brother, Oliver Messel, whom he c.
