Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan (2 March 1877 – 6 December 1964) was an American socialite. She was a member of the Vanderbilt family and only daughter of William Kissam Vanderbilt and Alva Erskine Smith. Her first marriage to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough has become a well-known example of the advantageous but loveless marriages common during the Gilded Age. The Duke obtained a large dowry through the marriage and reportedly told her – on their honeymoon — that he had married her only "because he felt obliged to save Blenheim," his ancestral home.
During the marriage, she became a popular and influential duchess. For much of their 25-year marriage, the Marlboroughs lived separately. After an official separation in 1906, the couple was divorced in 1921, followed by an annulment in 1926. Her first marriage produced two sons, John (the 10th Duke) and Ivor. She went on to marry the wealthy French aviator Jacques Balsan and continued her charitable endeavours. Consuelo and Balsan lived in France prior to World War II, then moved to the United States. As stipulated in her will, she was buried at St Martin's Church, the parish church for Blenheim Palace.
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Early life
Born in New York City, Consuelo was the only daughter and eldest child of William Kissam Vanderbilt, a New York railroad millionaire, and his first wife, Alva Erskine Smith, a Southern belle, budding suffragist, and daughter of Murray Forbes Smith. Consuelo's Spanish name was in honor of her godmother, Consuelo Yznaga, a half-Cuban, half-American socialite who had created a social stir in 1876 when she married the fortune-hunting George Montagu, Viscount Mandeville (later 8th Duke of Manchester), a union of Old World aristocracy and New World money.
Consuelo was largely dominated by her mother, who was determined that her daughter would make a grand match like that of her famous namesake. In her autobiography, Consuelo described how she was required to wear a steel rod, which ran down her spine and fastened around her waist and over her shoulders, to improve her posture. She was educated entirely at home by governesses and tutors, and learned foreign languages at an early age. Her mother whipped her with a riding crop for minor infractions, and when, as a teenager, Consuelo objected to the clothing her mother had selected for her, Alva told her that "I do the thinking, you do as you are told".
Like her godmother, Consuelo attracted numerous title-bearing suitors anxious to trade social position for cash. Her mother reportedly received at least five proposals for her hand. Consuelo was allowed to consider the proposal of just one of the men, Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg, but she developed an instant aversion to him. None of the others, however, was good enough for Alva, herself the daughter of a cotton broker.
Consuelo was considered a great beauty, with a face compelling enough to cause the playwright Sir James Barrie, author of Peter Pan, to write: "I would stand all day in the street to see Consuelo Marlborough get into her carriage." Oxford undergraduate Guy Fortescue later described how he and his friends were captivated by her "piquante oval face perched upon a long slender neck, her enormous dark eyes fringed with curling lashes, her dimples, and her tiny teeth when she smiled". She came to embody the "slim, tight look" that was in vogue during the Edwardian era.
First marriage
Determined to secure the highest-ranking husband possible for her only daughter, a union that would emphasize the preeminence of the Vanderbilt family, Alva engineered a meeting between Consuelo and the indebted, titled Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, chatelain of Blenheim Palace. The matchmaker was Lady Paget, the wife of Sir Arthur Paget. Born as Mary "Minnie" Stevens, Lady Paget was the daughter of Marietta Reed Stevens, the socially ambitious widow of American hotel entrepreneur Paran Stevens, who had successfully obtained admittance to the exclusive New York society of the fabled "Four Hundred". Lady Paget, always short of money, became a sort of international marital agent, introducing eligible American heiresses to British noblemen.
Consuelo had no interest in the Duke, being secretly engaged to Winthrop Rutherfurd, an American socialite 15 years her senior. Her mother begged, and then ultimately ordered her daughter to marry the Duke. When Consuelo – a docile teenager known only for her obedience to her fearsome mother – made plans to elope, she was locked in her room as Alva threatened to murder Rutherfurd. Consuelo refused until it was claimed that Alva's health was being undermined by Consuelo's stubbornness, and she appeared to be at death's door. Alva made an astonishing recovery from her supposed illness, and when the wedding took place, Consuelo stood at the altar reportedly weeping behind her veil. The Duke, for his part, allegedly gave up the woman he loved back in England and collected $2,500,000 ($91,600,000 in 2025 dollars) in railroad stock as a marriage settlement.
Consuelo married the Duke at Saint Thomas Church in Manhattan, on 6 November 1895. They had two sons, John Albert Edward William Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blandford (later 10th Duke of Marlborough and a godson of the future King Edward VII) in 1897, and Lord Ivor Charles Spencer-Churchill in 1898.
The new Duchess was adored by the poor and less fortunate tenants on her husband's estate, whom she visited and to whom she provided assistance. She later became involved with other philanthropic projects and was particularly interested in those that affected mothers and children. She was also a social success with the royalty and nobility of Britain.
Given the ill-fitting match between the Duke and Duchess, it was only a matter of time before their marriage was in name only. A few years into their marriage, Consuelo reconnected with Winthrop Rutherfurd and went on to spend two weeks in Paris with him. Soon after, she confessed to her husband that she loved Rutherfurd and wished to elope with him (the Duke's second wife, Gladys, later implied that Consuelo's second son was Rutherfurd's). In 1900, with the Duke's reluctant permission, she went to London to discuss the elopement with Rutherfurd, only for him to refuse her. In despair, the Duke set off for South Africa, where his cousin, Winston Churchill, was serving in the Second Boer War. He was away for six months, returning in July 1900. Upon his return, Consuelo confessed to having started an affair with his cousin, Reginald Fellowes. She may also have had an affair with the artist Paul César Helleu, who portrayed her several times in his sketches and pastel artwork. The artist's daughter believed that Helleu and Consuelo probably had an affair between 1900 and 1901, which continued after his return to Paris, where she visited him and sat for him again. By this time the Duke and Duchess had completely stopped being intimate, and soon the Duke fell for Gladys Deacon, an eccentric American of little money but, like Consuelo, dazzling to look at and of considerable intellect. After Consuelo's affair and planned elopement with the married Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (later 7th Marquess of Londonderry), the Marlboroughs separated in 1906 and divorced in 1921. The marriage was annulled, at the Duke's request and with Consuelo's assent, on 19 August 1926.
Marriage settlement and personal fortune
Consuelo Vanderbilt is one of the wealthiest and best-known "dollar princesses" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the financial settlement at the center of her union with the 9th Duke of Marlborough continues to attract commentary and reference more than a century after the wedding took place.
During the period between her marriage to the Duke in 1895 and their divorce in 1921, Consuelo, her first husband and their two sons benefitted from circa $20,000,000 in gifts and inheritances from William K. Vanderbilt, including:
The original 1895 marriage settlement:
A $2,500,000 trust with a guaranteed minimum annual income of $100,000 for the Duke
A $100,000 annual allowance for Consuelo during her father's lifetime, subject to a covenant that this amount would be guaranteed from a $2,500,000 payment from his estate after his death
Approximately $2,500,000 spent from 1900 to 1904 on the land purchase, construction and furnishing of Sunderland House, a palatial London townhouse for the couple
To Consuelo, a life interest in a $5,000,000 trust fund established in 1912, payable to her children after her death
To Consuelo, an additional $450,000 trust fund established in 1917
From William K. Vanderbilt's estate following his death in 1920:
To Consuelo, a 33.33% share of a $5,000,000 trust fund that her grandfather, William H. Vanderbilt, had established in his will for her father's benefit
To Consuelo's sons, Lord Blandford and Lord Ivor Spencer-Churchill, $1,000,000 each and a joint $900,000 trust fund
Second marriage and later life
Consuelo's second wedding, on 4 July 1921, was to Lt. Col. Jacques Balsan, a record-breaking pioneer French balloon, aircraft, and hydroplane pilot who once worked with the Wright Brothers. Also a textile manufacturing heir, Balsan was the older brother of Étienne Balsan, an early lover of Coco Chanel. Their marriage lasted until Balsan's death in 1956 at the age of 88.
After the end of her first marriage, Consuelo still maintained ties with favorite Churchill relatives, particularly Winston Churchill, himself the son of the American heiress Jennie Jerome. He was a frequent visitor at her château in Saint-Georges-Motel, a small commune near Dreux about 50 miles from Paris, in the 1920s and 1930s.
Records in Florida show that in 1932 Consuelo built a house in Manalapan, just south of Palm Beach. The 26,000 square feet mansion was designed by Maurice Fatio and named "Casa Alva" in honor of her mother; the property was sold in 1957. Many believe that, in 1946, Churchill polished his famous Iron Curtain speech here, as he visited Consuelo on his way to Missouri to deliver the address at Westminster College.
As Consuelo Vanderbilt-Balsan, she published her insightful but not entirely candid autobiography, The Glitter and the Gold, in 1953. In spite of suggestions that it was ghostwritten by Stuart Preston, an American writer who was an art critic for The New York Times, Preston consistently denied that role while admitting to unspecified involvement with the book. A reviewer in The Times called it "an ideal epitaph of the age of elegance".
After Jacques Balsan's death 1956, Consuelo continued to divide her time between New York City and Southampton, Long Island, becoming a familiar figure around town. The days of her notoriety were behind her but she had not lost her aristocratic tastes. Having once admired a Louis XVI room and its boiserie in a French chateau, she had the entire room transported to Gardenside, where it remained until her death in 1964. Consuelo died in Southampton, New York, on 6 December 1964. She was buried near her younger son, Lord Ivor, in the churchyard at St Martin's Church, Bladon, Oxfordshire, not far from her former home, Blenheim Palace.
Public service
Consuelo was considered to be politically liberal and quite progressive for an aristocrat, with her advocacy for social reforms and endorsement of the Liberal Party's welfare agenda, such as free school meals, free medical inspection for children, national insurance for workers and old-age pensions. She was also an advocate for women's suffrage, seeing it as a means to remedy social welfare problems – though she condemned militant tactics in stark contrast with her more radical mother. In 1913, she became chairwoman of the Women's Municipal Party to promote greater female participation in municipal elections.
During World War I, Consuelo worked as the chair of the Economic Relief Committee for the American Women's War Relief Fund.
In 1917, she became a councillor on the London County Council for Southwark West (later Southwark North) after a vacancy opened. Although she had no desire to enter politics, she felt a strong sense of obligation after the Women's Municipal Party asked her to take up the vacant seat. She stood as the candidate for the Progressive Party alongside Albert Wilson, winning re-election in 1919, and holding the seat until her divorce from the Duke.
During the interwar period, Consuelo and Winaretta de Polignac (Singer Sewing Machine heiress) worked together in the construction of a 360-bed hospital destined to provide medical care to middle class workers. The result of this effort is the Foch Hospital, located in Suresnes, a suburb of Paris. The hospital also includes a school of nursing and is one of the top ranked hospitals in France, especially for renal transplants. It has remained true to its origins and stayed a private not-for-profit institution that still serves the Paris community. It is managed by the Fondation Médicale Franco-Américaine du Mont-Valérien, commonly known as Foch Foundation.
In popular culture
During the 2014–2015 exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery, she was featured among the high-profile American heiresses to marry into British aristocracy. Also included in the exhibition were Margaret Leiter (married the 19th Earl of Suffolk), Jennie Jerome (married Lord Randolph Churchill), Mary Leiter (married the 1st Baron Curzon of Kedleston), May Cuyler (married Sir Philip Grey Egerton, 12th Bt), Consuelo Yznaga (married the 8th Duke of Manchester) and Cornelia Martin (married the 4th Earl of Craven).