Valerie Violet French

Violet Valerie Kindersley (13 February 1909 – 18 July 1997), French, and known from 1931 to 1934 as Lady Brougham and Vaux, was a Natal-born English socialite. She and her sister Essex were known as the "French sisters" and included in The Book of Beauty by Cecil Beaton.

Biography

Violet Valerie French was born on 13 February 1909 at Pietermaritzburg, Natal, South Africa, the daughter of English cricketer Lt Col the Hon Edward Gerald Fleming French (1883–1970), Deputy Governor of Dartmoor Prison and Governor of Newcastle Prison, and Leila Elizabeth Fyfe King (d. 1959), daughter of Robert King, of Natal, South Africa. Her grandfather was John French, 1st Earl of Ypres.

On 21 April 1931, she married Victor Brougham, 4th Baron Brougham and Vaux. They had one son, Julian Henry Peter Brougham (1932–1952), who was killed while on active service in Malaya in 1952, aged 19.

On 26 November 1936, she married Captain Hon. Philip Leyland Kindersley (1907–1995), fourth son of Robert Kindersley, 1st Baron Kindersley and Gladys Margaret Beadle. They had three children: Nicoletta Leila Kindersley (b. 1939), Virginia Alexandra de L'Estang Kindersley (b. 1943), and Christian Philip Kindersley (b. 1950).