Lady Annabel Goldsmith

Lady Annabel Goldsmith (Template:Née Vane-Tempest-Stewart, formerly Birley; 11 June 1934 – 18 October 2025) was an English socialite, author, and political activist. She was the eponym of Annabel's, the exclusive Mayfair nightclub founded by her first husband, businessman Mark Birley. A prominent London society hostess during the 1960s and 1970s, she attracted media attention for her relationship with financier Sir James Goldsmith, which began during her marriage to Birley and later led to their own marriage. In her later years, she published memoirs and supported political and philanthropic causes.

Background and image

Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart was born on 11 June 1934 in London, the second of three children in an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family with roots in Ulster and County Durham. She was the younger daughter of Robin Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 8th Marquess of Londonderry, and Romaine Combe, whose father was Major Boyce Combe of Surrey.<ref name="burke">Template:Cite book</ref>

She became Lady Annabel as a young girl in February 1949, when her father became marquess on the death of his father, the controversial Ulster Unionist politician The 7th Marquess of Londonderry.<ref name=Tel>Template:Cite news</ref> Her mother died of cancer in 1951, but the illness was kept a secret by her parents. She later said, "Cancer was such a taboo then – Mummy didn't even tell her sisters."<ref name="portrait of lady">Template:Cite news</ref> Subsequently, her father became a chronic alcoholic and died from liver failure at the age of 52 on 17 October 1955. "My father was a really wonderful man but after my mother died, we couldn't talk to him as we had done before. He couldn't face life without her and he turned into Jekyll and Hyde almost overnight", she explained.<ref name="glittering life">Template:Cite news</ref>

She was named after her mother's favourite song, "Miss Annabel Lee", and grew up as a country child at her family's former estates of Mount Stewart, Wynyard Park, and Londonderry House.<ref name="profile">Template:Cite news</ref> She was educated at Southover Manor School in Sussex<ref>Annabel Goldsmith, No Invitation Required (2008), Chapter 1: Pelham Cottage</ref> and Cuffy's Tutorial College in Oxford. Awkward and shy in her youth, she was an avid reader, equestrian,<ref name="Annabel book" /> and a Girl Guide for the Bullfinch Patrol.<ref name="better mother" /> She transformed from an unconfident and self-described "skinny, gauche young girl"<ref name="profile" /> into a socialite during the 1950s and 1960s.<ref name="better mother" /> Queen Elizabeth II attended her coming-out ball in 1952.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> As part of the London social circle, she was known for her sense of humour, down-to-earth personality, and love of children and dogs.<ref name="glittering life" /><ref name="better mother" /> She was never a drinker. She chain-smoked until the age of 40.<ref name="better mother" />

Personal life

Lady Annabel was the mother of Rupert, Robin, India Jane Birley and Jemima, Zac, and Ben Goldsmith. She had referred to herself as "an incredible mother, rather a good mistress, but not a very good wife".<ref name="Annabel book" /> With six children and five miscarriages,<ref name="better mother">Template:Cite news</ref> her primary vocation was motherhood, which prompted her to say: "I'm not judgmental about women who work, but I was so besotted with my children I never wanted them out of my sight."<ref name="Gerard interview">Template:Cite news</ref> She was also considered a mother figure by her nieces, Ladies Cosima and Sophia Vane-Tempest-Stewart,<ref name="Annabel book" /> and Diana, Princess of Wales.<ref name="profile" /> As the wife and ex-wife of two unfaithful men, she explained her marriage philosophy to the Times in 1987: "I can never understand the wives who really mind, the wives who set such store by fidelity. How extraordinary, and how mad they are. Because, surely, if the man goes out and he comes back, it's not actually doing any harm."<ref name="infidelity">Template:Cite news</ref>

Annabel's and the Birleys

On 10 March 1954, at the age of 19, she married businessman Mark Birley at the Caxton Hall register office in London. Birley famously paid tribute to her by naming in her honour his nightclub, Annabel's, which opened on 4 June 1963 and was run by Birley for more than forty years. During the 1960s, Lady Annabel was a constant presence at Annabel's, known as one of the grandest nightclubs of the sixties and seventies, where she entertained guests ranging from Ted and Robert F. Kennedy to Frank Sinatra, Prince Charles, Richard Nixon, and Muhammad Ali.<ref name="profile" /><ref name="Birley obit." /> "I used to be there every night, even when I had three small children to take to school the next day. It was like a second home to me", she recalled.<ref name="Mark Birley's death">Template:Cite news</ref>

She raised her three children with Birley at Pelham Cottage. Her eldest son Rupert, who was born on 20 August 1955, studied at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1986, he disappeared off the coast of Togo in West Africa,<ref name="Rupert">Template:Cite news</ref> where he was presumed drowned.<ref name="Rupert interview">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref> "There really is nothing worse than losing a child – and there is something special about your first-born", she said, adding that, "Because I was so young when Rupert was born ... we were more like good friends than mother and son."<ref name="portrait of lady" /> Her second son Robin (b. 19 February 1958) is a businessman, whose face was disfigured as a child when he was mauled by a tigress at John Aspinall's private zoo. Having let him go near the pregnant tigress, Lady Annabel said, "It was my own fault. I was, am, angry with myself."<ref name="portrait of lady" /> Her first daughter India Jane (born 14 January 1961), the granddaughter of society portrait painter Sir Oswald Birley, is an artist.

The Birleys separated in 1972 and later divorced in 1975 after the birth of her second child with James Goldsmith. "Our breakup was because of Mark's infidelities, not because I fell in love with Jimmy", she told Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth after Birley's death. Revealing that Birley had numerous other girlfriends from the beginning of their relationship,<ref name="matriarch">Template:Cite news</ref> she added: "I think he was absolutely incapable of being faithful. He was a serial adulterer. Like a butterfly, he had to seduce every woman."<ref name="VF profile">Template:Cite news</ref>

Despite their divorce, the two remained best friends, talking to each other every day and holidaying together until Birley's death in August 2007.<ref name="Birley obit.">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="matriarch" /> Birley said they were "the true loves of each other's lives".<ref name="Annabel book" />

Goldsmith affair and remarriage

In 1964, she embarked on a decade-long extramarital affair with Sir James Goldsmith, a member of the Goldsmith family. Though both she and Goldsmith, who was then married to his second wife Ginette Lery, believed that the affair would be a passing fling, it soon gained her notoriety in London's gossip columns as a modern mistress. She was eventually coaxed into having his children by their friend John Aspinall, who was also a former friend of Mark Birley who introduced her to Goldsmith.<ref name="Jimmy-Asper book">Template:Cite book</ref>

While still legally married to Birley, she gave birth to Jemima (b. 30 January 1974) and Zac (b. 20 January 1975).<ref name="burke" /> Her last child Ben Goldsmith was born on 28 October 1980 at 46, after two consecutive miscarriages. The children were raised in Ormeley Lodge in Ham, London. The half-Jewish and half-Catholic Goldsmith was an occasional presence in their lives as he divided time between three families.<ref name="nyt obituary">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Goldsmith dead">Template:Cite news</ref> In 1978, Goldsmith and Lady Annabel married solely to legitimise their children.<ref name="Annabel book">Template:Cite book</ref>

Goldsmith moved to New York with his new mistress Laure Boulay de la Meurthe, daughter of Alfred, Comte Boulay de la Meurthe, in 1981 and spent the last years of his life mostly in France and Mexico. He became known for quoting Sacha Guitry's words, "If you marry your mistress you create a job vacancy." Often wrongly credited with the quote, Goldsmith admitted, "I quoted him at dinner, and it was pinned on me. I don't mind. ... I just don't want to claim what's not mine."<ref name="JG interview">Template:Cite news</ref> In 1997, she and her youngest three children inherited a portion of Goldsmith's wealth, estimated varyingly at £1.6<ref name="Goldsmith will">Template:Cite news</ref> and $1.7–$2.4<ref name="RP obit">Template:Cite news</ref> billion.

She resided in Ormeley Lodge, a Template:Convert Georgian mansion on the edge of Richmond Park, with two Grand Basset Griffon Vendéens, Daisy and Lily,<ref name="dogs">Template:Cite news</ref> and three Norfolk terriers, Barney, Boris and Bindy.<ref name="weekend">Template:Cite news</ref> In 2003, she remarked on her children's varied marital patterns by observing, "All my children with James marry young and breed, and my children with Mark do the opposite."<ref name="matriarch" />

Later life and death

Lady Annabel had fourteen grandchildren.<ref name="burke" /> She spent part of each year at her Template:Convert organic farm in the hills above Benahavís<ref name="column1">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref> and had a 1930s holiday home by the seaside in Bognor Regis, West Sussex.<ref name="hh">Template:Cite news</ref> Asked about her regrets in life, in 2004, she confessed wishing that she had, instead of marrying twice, been "a one-man woman".<ref name="Gerard interview" /><ref name="frost interview">Template:Cite episode</ref>

Lady Annabel died on 18 October 2025, at the age of 91.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Activism and philanthropy

Lady Annabel was president of the Richmond Park branch of the Royal Society of St George, a patriotic outreach society aimed to motivate youth.<ref name="St. George club">Template:Cite web</ref> She was a donor to and supporter of the Countryside Alliance,<ref name="countryside alliance">Template:Cite news</ref> the environmental charity The Soil Association, and African Solutions to African Problems (ASAP), which works to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on orphans and vulnerable children in South Africa.<ref name="african problems">Template:Cite web</ref> As an animal lover, she was also one of the patrons of the Dogs Trust<ref name="dogs trust">Template:Cite web</ref> and a supporter of the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home,<ref name="Battersea Dogs Home">Template:Cite news</ref> along with being vice-president of the British Show Pony Society.<ref name="pony society">Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref> She had an early interest in journalism but declined a low-level position at the Daily Mail at age 19 to get married instead.<ref name="Annabel book" /> She contributed opinion editorials to national newspapers The Sunday Times,<ref name="referendum movement" /> The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph,<ref name="column1" /><ref name="Diana article">Template:Cite news</ref> among others.<ref name="Diana article2">Template:Cite news</ref>

Inspired by Hungarian Premier Imre Nagy's radio address during the Hungarian Revolution, in November 1956, she and Birley volunteered with the Save the Children organisation in Vienna. She organised charitable donations and travelled daily to look after refugees who crossed the Austrian border into the frontier town of Andau.<ref name="Annabel book" /> In May 1997, she campaigned with her second husband in Putney, the constituency unsuccessfully contested by Goldsmith for his Referendum Party.<ref name="column1" /><ref name="campaign">Template:Cite news</ref> She continued to support her husband's ideas, like the single currency referendum, after his death as part of the Referendum Movement, which was headed by Paul Sykes and Lord McAlpine of West Green and of which she became honorary president.<ref name="referendum movement">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="rm sykes">Template:Cite news</ref>

In January 1999, she launched the Democracy Movement, of which she was president<ref name="column1" /> and her son Robin was chairman until 2004.<ref name="DM launch">Template:Cite news</ref> Starting from 12 January 2001, the organisation launched a £500,000 advertising and leafleting campaign to expose the parliamentary votes of pro-Brussels candidates in 120 "target" seats before the May general elections.<ref name="BBC DM">Template:Cite news</ref> The Democracy Movement released two million pamphlets carrying gloom-ridden headlines about a European state and published full page local newspaper advertisements in the constituencies of 70 Labour MPs, 35 Liberal Democrats, six Conservatives and three Scottish National Party candidates.<ref name="DMcampaign">Template:Cite news</ref> Describing the campaign as an effort "in memory of Jimmy", she said:

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On 17 December 2007, she testified at the inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, where she denied the rumour that the princess was in love with and/or pregnant by Dodi Fayed.<ref name="diana1">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="diana3">Template:Cite news</ref> "She was in love with Hasnat Khan. I felt she was still on the rebound from Hasnat Khan... She might have been having a wonderful time with him, I'm sure, but I thought her remark that she needed marriage like a rash meant that she was not serious about it", Lady Annabel told the jury.<ref name="diana2">Template:Cite news</ref>

Books

In March 2004, Weidenfeld & Nicolson published her memoirs Annabel: An Unconventional Life, which recounted her life from a pre-World War II aristocratic childhood and her glamorous social circle of the 1960s to her status as an active grandmother.<ref name="Gerard interview" /> The book was serialised in The Mail on Sunday. On the promotion tour, she gave numerous interviews and participated in a discussion with historian Andrew Roberts at the annual Cheltenham Festival of Literature in April 2004.<ref name="literary festival">Template:Cite news</ref> A Daily Telegraph profile observed that, "What seems to have kept Annabel afloat is her almost naive ability to let bygones be bygones".<ref name="book profileDT">Template:Cite news</ref> Claudia FitzHerbert's review in the same newspaper denounced the autobiography as "woodenly hilarious" and "disappointingly vague".<ref name="book reviewDT">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

David Chapman, reviewing the book for the Newsquest Media Group Newspapers, concluded, "This is a decidedly funny memoir that includes the scrapes and japes of nob culture."<ref name="chapman review">Template:Cite news</ref> Lorne Jackson of the Sunday Mercury was totally dismissive of what he called "a dull memoir", stating: "This could have all been explained in one page, possibly two if the type was particularly large."<ref name="mercury review">Template:Cite news</ref> The Sunday Times commented that, "Annabel comes across as a decent woman ... but her writing is flat, with a few too many clumsy constructions, and her story lacks drama, even when terrible things happen to her."<ref name="ST review">Template:Cite news</ref> Biographer Selina Hastings called it "a well-ordered, decently written book,"<ref name="hastings review">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref> while the Evening Standard wrote, "Goldsmith herself comes across as fun and warm, a good sport, if sometimes strangely submissive and a little overfond of her own breasts."<ref name="ES review">Template:Cite news</ref> Annabel became a No.1 London best-seller for non-fiction.<ref name="London best-seller">Template:Cite news</ref> Nationally, the memoirs reached the top ten non-fiction best-sellers in England, fluctuating from No. 7<ref name="copper-bottomed" /> to No. 4<ref name="best-seller list4">Template:Cite news</ref> and then No. 6.<ref name="best-seller list6">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="best-seller">Template:Cite web</ref>

She followed her autobiography, two years later in September 2006, by ghost-writing her pet dog Copper's autobiography in the name of Copper: A Dog's Life. Her daughter India Jane illustrated the book. Copper was originally bought by the Goldsmiths as a reward to their daughter Jemima for passing her Common Entrance Examination, but he remained in Lady Annabel's care for most of his life and had an adventurous time in Richmond. "Amid tough competition, he was probably the greatest character I ever knew", she told The Daily Telegraph.<ref name="copper-bottomed">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref> The mongrel, who died in 1998, was famed for travelling by bus, chasing joggers and visiting a Richmond pub, the Dysart Arms.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Her literary efforts originated after the experience, according to her, of a life-defining moment on 29 December 2000.<ref name="portrait of lady" /> She, her son Benjamin, daughter Jemima and her two sons, plus her niece Lady Cosima Somerset and her two children were travelling to Kenya, when a passenger on their British Airways plane stormed into the cockpit and tried to seize the controls.<ref name="nairobi">Template:Cite news</ref> The autopilot on the flight to Nairobi became temporarily disengaged and the jumbo was knocked off course, abruptly diving and plunging Template:Convert below. "Nobody on that plane thought, 'am I going to die?Template:'" she later recalled. "They all thought, 'we are going to die'. It was horrible, horrible."<ref name="portrait of lady" /> This near-death incident was credited by Lady Annabel as the catalyst for her writings. "I had always thought that I would write a book", she claimed, "but writing my memoirs didn't really come into my head until after that flight." In the introduction to Annabel, she wrote:

Her third book, No Invitation Required: The Pelham Cottage Years, was released in November 2009. The book is composed of "intimate and perceptive essays [and] pen-portraits of some of the extraordinary figures that entered the Birley and Goldsmith circles – among them, Lord Lambton, Patrick Plunket, John Aspinall, Geoffrey Keating, Lord Lucan, Dominic Elwes and Claus von Bülow."<ref name="amazon memoir">Template:Cite book</ref>

Bibliography

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External links

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• Woman's Hour: Leading Women interview, audio appearance during promotional tour for Annabel—BBC Radio 4
• Democracy Movement, a non-party and anti-EU pressure group founded by Lady Annabel