Sheila Wingfield

The Rt Hon. Sheila Wingfield, Viscountess Powerscourt (née Sheila Claude Beddington; 23 May 1906 – 8 January 1992), was an Anglo-Irish poet. Life and work Lady Powerscourt was born in Hampshire and attended the Roedean School. She attended art school in Paris. She was the daughter of Major Claude Beddington and Frances Ethel (née Homan-Mulock). Ethel was the daughter of a Protestant family from County Offaly, whose homes included the Bellair and Ballycumber estates, where Lady Powerscourt spent most of her childhood summer holidays. Her mother was also the author of All That I Have Met. Lady Powerscourt later inherited the Bellair estate from her aunt. Her mother's uncle was Alfred Austin, Poet Laureate. Her father was from a Jewish family who had changed the surname from Moses. They had earned their wealth in the tobacco trade. Her parents did not approve of her interest in writing so she hid her interest. Her father went so far as to forbid her to read. She also hid her Jewish background from those around her, again at her father's insistence. Her cousins included the Jewish literary figures Violet Schiff and Ada Leverson, and her grandfather was born Alfred Henry Moses. In 1932 she married The Hon. Mervyn Patrick Wingfield (1905–1973), later The 9th Viscount Powerscourt, in Jerusalem. They had three children, a daughter and two sons: Grania Langrishe, Mervyn and Guy Wingfield.