The Times newspaper has announced the death of Jonathan Guinness (1930-2026) late last week (30 October) at the age of 96. Most of the obituary relates to Jonathan’s political and financial endeavors. It notes at the beginning, however, that his parents were Bryan and Diane (Mitford) Guinness, close friends of Evelyn Waugh and to whom he dedicated two books: Vile Bodies and Labels, both published in 1930. Here’s an excerpt from the Times obituary:
…Jonathan Bryan Guinness was born in London in 1930, the elder son of Bryan Guinness, a novelist and poet and later the second Lord Moyne, and the society beauty Diana Mitford. At the heart of the Bright Young Things set, the couple entertained Evelyn Waugh, who dedicated Vile Bodies to them and became Jonathan’s godfather, John Betjeman, and the Sitwells. They had a second son, Desmond, born in 1931. The boys’ childhood was spent in England and Ireland, mainly at the family’s houses at Biddesden in Wiltshire and Knockmaroon beside Phoenix Park in Dublin…
Waugh mentions Jonathan in several letters, mostly addressed to Nancy Mitford, who would have been his aunt. In another to Nancy’s sister Diana (Jonathan’s mother), Waugh mentions to her how kind Nancy and Bryan were him to in the period following the break up of his first marriage (Letters, 638). They provided him with a place (or places) to live at a time that coincided with Jonathan’s birth. Waugh also mentions in his diaries (Diaries, 526) taking Jonathan to a circus on Hampstead Heath in August 1942.
