Sheila Wingfield

Sheila Wingfield
Born (1906-05-23)23 May 1906
Hampshire, United Kingdom
Died January 8, 1992(1992-01-08) (aged 85)
County Dublin, Ireland
Occupation Writer, Poet
Nationality Irish
Genre Imagist Movement

Sheila Wingfield (née Sheila Claude Beddington; Viscountess of Powerscourt; May 23, 1906-January 8, 1992)[1] was an Irish poet.

Life and work

Lady Powerscourt was born in Hampshire and attended the Roedean School.[2] She attended art school in Paris.[3] She was the daughter Major Claude Beddington and Frances Ethel (née Homan-Mulock). Ethel was the daughter of a Protestant family from Co. Offaly, whose homes included the Bellair and Ballycumber estates, where Lady Powerscourt spent most of her childhood summer holidays. Her mother was also the author of "All that I have Met".[4] Lady Powerscourt later inherited the Bellair estate from her aunt. Her mother's uncle was Alfred Austin, Poet laureate.[5]

Her father was from a Jewish family who had changed the surname from Moses. They had earned their wealth in the tobacco trade. Her parents did not approve of her interest in writing so she hide her interest.[2] Her father went so far as to forbid her to read.[3] She also hid her Jewish background from those around her, again at her father's insistence. Her cousins included the Jewish literary figures, Violet Schiff and Ada Leverson, and her grandfather was born Alfred Henry Moses.[6]

In 1932 she married Hon. Mervyn Patrick Wingfield (1905–73), later the 9th Viscount Powerscourt in Jerusalem. They had three children, a daughter and two sons, Grainne Langrishe, Mervyn and Guy Wingfield.

Her poems were first published in The Dublin Magazine of 1937.[7] Although initially supportive her husband later requested her not to be involved in the literary circle in Ireland.[3] During her life she produced eight collections of verse and three memoirs of Irish life however she is not well known in Ireland. This is despite the admiration of Elizabeth Bowen, W.B.Yeats, John Betjeman, TS Eliot and James Stephens.[8][9] However she and Yeats had a falling out when she used his praise from a private letter on the cover of her first publication. She suffered her first breakdown during the production of that publication. Lady Powerscourt wanted to be a respected poet. She suffered from addictions to alcohol, morphine and cocaine. Her drug use had started during her seasons in London.[10][11]

The second world war had a huge impact on the family. Viscount Powerscourt served in the war and was captured by the Germans in Italy. When he came home his health had been compromised and he suffered from shell shock. Lady Powerscourt had taken the family to Bermuda. They returned home when he did. Her best work was written in response to the war Beat Drum, Beat Heart (1946). Her husband came into his inheritance of the Powerscourt Estate in 1947.[3]

She became the leader of Irish Girl Guides and helped catalogue Chester Beatty Library. Her marriage never recovered from the impact of the war however. In 1963 she left her husband and as a result of the financial impact the family sold Powerscourt. Lady Powerscourt lived after that in hotels in Bermuda, London, Dublin and Switzerland. She finally died in a home near Dublin.[3]

In the 1950s, Lady Powerscourt won the Poetry Society Book Choice.[3]

The Sheila Wingfield Papers are being kept in the National Library of Ireland and Houghton Library, Harvard University.[12]

Bibliography

Collections

Autobiography & memoir

Other sources

References

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