Nina Welby-Gregory

Emmeline 'Nina' Cust (1867–1955) was an English writer, editor, translator and sculptor. She was a member of The Souls, an upper class circle that challenged the conventions and attitudes of their class in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Personal life Cust was born at Denton Hall to Victoria, Lady Welby, a philosophical writer and Sir William Earle Welby-Gregory, a politician and landowner. Her maternal grandmother, Lady Emmeline Stuart-Wortley was a renowned Victorian poet and travel writer. Cust was devoted to her husband, despite a reputedly unhappy marriage that lasted until his death in 1917. A detailed look at Nina and Harry, as individuals and as a married couple, can be found in 'Tangled Souls: Love & Scandal among the Victorian Aristocracy' by Jane Dismore (pub. The History Press, 2022).

Cust was a direct neighbour of sculptor Jacob Epstein when they both lived at Hyde Park Gate in London. She also published accounts of her grandmother's travels. Cust contributed shorter pieces to contemporary periodicals including the journal of the English Association.

Virginia Woolf is known to have reviewed at least one of Cust's published books, probably 'Gentleman Errant'.

Cust's translation of 'Semantics; studies in the science of meaning' by Michel Jules Alfred Bréal presented the text's first appearance in English. Not all the suns; poems, 1917-1944, first published by Nicholson & Watson, London, in 1944 A Tub of Gold Fishes, first published by James Bain, London Dilectissimo, first published by Macmillan and Co., London, in 1932

Artwork Cust may have attended the Académie Julian in Paris, although it is unclear which art forms she trained in. It is also possible that she studied sculpture in London. Alexander Fisher produced an enamelled portrait of Cust in 1898.

Works held in collections Cust's sculpture is represented in British collections including the following works,