Queer Places:
Wollogorang (Australia)
Margaret
Sheila Mackellar Chisholm (9 September 1895 – 13 October 1969) was an
Australian socialite and "it girl" in British high society during and after
World War I. She married three times: Francis St Clair-Erskine, Lord
Loughborough (heir to the 5th Earl of Rosslyn); Sir John Charles Peniston
Milbanke, 11th Bt; and Prince Dmitri Alexandrovich of Russia. Chisholm also
had close relationships with brothers George VI and Edward VIII, both future
Kings of the United Kingdom. Chisholm's romantic liaison with George ended
when his father, George V, told him to leave the already-married Australian
and find someone more suitable.
Known for her striking beauty, she is likely the inspiration for the
Australian phrase "a good-looking sheila".[1]
Sheila Chisholm was born on 9 September 1895 on the family property
"Wollogorang", the centre of the locality now called Wollogorang, near
Breadalbane, New South Wales, youngest child and only daughter of grazier
Harry Chisholm and his wife Margaret (née Mackellar).
Her paternal great-grandfather was Scottish and arrived in Australia with the
Second Fleet in 1790.
The Chisholms became wealthy members of the Squattocracy in New South Wales,
and she was raised on "Wollogorang" with her two older brothers, John and Roy.
As the only girl in a rough, male-dominated world, she often attempted to
match and outdo the working men at tasks on the station. She recalled how she
liked to "go out further than the furthest man" when swimming at Bondi Beach,
until she witnessed a man lose his leg in a shark attack.
Chisholm was also attracted to the arts and had a deep appreciation for
Australia's flora and fauna.
In her unpublished memoir, Waltzing Matilda, she described her
adolescent self as "a queer mix of romanticism and boyishness ... I was quite
unconscious of my looks".
Chisholm dated Italian-American actor
Rudolph Valentino,
who gifted to her his "lucky bracelet". He died six months later and Chisholm
regretted it was because she had taken his luck. She is known to have inspired
British author Evelyn Waugh
to write his celebrated 1948 novel The Loved One.
Chisholm had fallen into obscurity by the time of her death and was almost
completely forgotten until the publication of journalist Robert Wainwright's
2014 biography Sheila: The Australian Beauty Who Bewitched British Society.[1]
My published books:
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Chisholm