Cynthia Postan

Lady Cynthia Rosalie Postan ( Keppel; 25 June 1918 – 12 November 2017) was a British debutante, secretary for MI5, translator and editor, horticulturalist, and porcelain collector.

Early life Cynthia Rosalie Keppel was born at Daws Hill, in the grounds of Wycombe Abbey, on 25 June 1918, the fourth child of Walter Keppel, Viscount Bury, later the 9th Earl of Albemarle, and Lady Judith Sydney Myee Wynn-Carington, daughter of Charles Wynn-Carington, 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire. Her mother died of tuberculosis when Cynthia was nine.

She lived part of her childhood at her grandfather's house in Norfolk and was educated at a boarding school in Littlehampton. She trained as a shorthand typist at Mrs Hoster's Secretarial College in Brompton Road, London, and was presented to Edward VIII as a debutante in 1936. She was "finished" in Munich, Germany, in 1936.

Collecting She formed an important collection of French porcelain which was sold in 2015.

Death Lady Cynthia died on 12 November 2017.

Selected publications Edited The Rhododendron Story: 200 Years of Plant Hunting and Garden Cultivation. Royal Horticultural Society, 1996.

Translations Duby, Georges. (1968) Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West. London: Edward Arnold. Bairoch, Paul. (1975) The Economic Development of the Third World since 1900. London: Methuen. Duby, Georges. (1977) The Chivalrous Society. University of California Press.