2013 Essays

Gwladys, Marchioness of Townshend

Terpstra, Mirte

The Marchioness of Townshend was born Gwladys Ethel Gwendolen Eugénie Sutherst. She married the 6th Marquess of Townshend in 1905 by whom she had two children, including the 7th Marquess of Townshend. Townshend later remarried Bernard le Strange. A high society celebrity, Townshend was a writer of articles, plays, novels, and scenarios, and in 1936 published the collection True Ghost Stories with Maude Ffoulkes (McKernan “Interview”). In her 1937 autobiography, It Was and It Wasn’t, Townshend writes that she also inspired two fellow peeresses to write scenarios, the Countesses of Warwick and Roden.