Diana Uhlman

Nancy Diana Joyce Uhlman born Hon. [Nancy] Diana Joyce Croft (31 March 1912 – 14 November 1999) was an English art gallery administrator for the Artists' International Association. She saved Croft Castle from demolition. Life Uhlman was born in South Kensington in 1912. Her conservative parents were Nancy Beatrice born Borwick and the politician Henry Page Croft, first Baron Croft. Her maternal grandfather was Robert Hudson Borwick, first Baron Borwick. She was educated at St James's School in Malvern and she was "presented at court" after attending finishing schools in Paris and Florence. Her father was a war hero and leading xenophobic politician who in 1917 had been a co-founder of the National Party which opposed German influence. She rebelled. She went out to meet the unemployed Jarrow Marchers when they arrived in London despite her parents wishes. She then went on holiday where she met the people fighting against the fascists in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. In Tossa de Mar, a small fishing village on the Costa Brava, she met the German emigrant, lawyer and artist, Fred Uhlman.<ref>The Making of an Englishman, Fred Uhlman, Victor Gollanz, 1960, p.188.</ref> Her parents did not want her to marry the penniless artist and that is what she did. On 3 September 1936, Fred Uhlman landed in England with no money and unable to speak the language. Two months later, on 4 November 1936, he married Diana Croft against her parents' strongest wishes. They set up home on Downshire Hill, in London's Hampstead and it became a meeting place for refugees and exiles who' had been forced to flee their homeland. She was joint secretary of the Artists' Refugee Committee who arranged for European artists, like Oskar Kokoschka, to emigrate to the United Kingdom.