How did the star debutante of 1930, a Morvern lines woman whose name was a byword for class and glamour, become plagued by scandal, heartbreak and tragedy? In her new book, The Grit in the Pearl, author Lyndsy Spence reveals how Ethel Margaret Whigham, later the Duchess of Argyll, was a woman ahead of her time – but also the product of an emotionally abusive mother and the victim of unscrupulous and vicious men.
Using previously unpublished sources – including an image from Scottish Field’s archives – and personal transcripts, this is the full story of a fragile woman who took a bid to gain independence in a life that befell so many women of her generation – and lost.
Margaret, Duchess of Argyll’s life was one of complexity and controversy. Born Ethel Margaret Whigham, the only child of a Scottish self-made millionaire and a beautiful high-society woman, her childhood was rich and splendid – but empty. She was a daddy’s girl with an absent father, living with a jealous mother who sought to remind Margaret of her every shortcoming. As she grew up, her name was a byword for class and beauty; she was the debutante of her coming-out year, and her marriage to Charles Sweeny literally stopped traffic.