Sylvia Maxwell Fyfe (later Sackville, Countess De La Warr DBE) was a public servant and the first woman Vice Chair of the Conservative Party (1951-54).
Born 16th 1903, Sylvia Margaret Harrison, the second daughter of Edith and William Reginald Harrison, a cotton broker of Liverpool, her younger brother Reginald grew up to become Oscar winning actor Sir Rex Harrison. She matched her brother for charm, while dedicating her life to the success of her husband David Maxwell Fyfe, whom she married in Liverpool in 1925.
Born 16th 1903, Sylvia Margaret Harrison, the second daughter of Edith and William Reginald Harrison, a cotton broker of Liverpool, her younger brother Reginald grew up to become Oscar winning actor Sir Rex Harrison. She matched her brother for charm, while dedicating her life to the success of her husband David Maxwell Fyfe, whom she married in Liverpool in 1925.
As well as caring for their three daughters, she provided wholehearted practical support throughout her husband’s political career, acting as his unofficial driver, and taking on his constituency business in Liverpool and West Derby for the year he was away at the Nuremberg Trials.
Letters exchanged between them during that time, first formed the basis of of a play by her grandson Tom Blackmore - Making History - produced in Sevenoaks and Oxford.
They are now threaded through song cycle Dreams of Peace & Freedom. Her great-grand-daughter Lily and her brother Robert read them in the performances for ECHR 75.The letters are now held at The Churchill Archive at Churchill College, Cambridge.
Her involvement in Liverpool constituency work continued once David returned from Nuremberg, and in 1950 that work was recognised when she became the first women Vice-chair of the Conservative party, a position she held until 1954.
On her husband’s ennoblement in October 1954 she became the Viscountess Kilmuir, Later Countess Kilmuir (July 1962) It was around this time, that this portrait was painted by Anna Zinkheisan.
In 1957 she was appointed Dame Commander, Order of the British Empire ( D.B.E ) and in the same year became President of the Electrical Association for Women. Following David's death in 1967 she married the 9th Earl De La Warr, becoming Countess De La Warr.
She was Vice-President of the Girls Friendly Society and of the King George’s Fund for Sailors, President of the Ladies Guild of the Gordon Smith institute for Seam, and later Chair of the governors at Rose Bruford Drama College and Patron of Chiddingstone Castle. She was appointed chairman of the UK committee of UNICEF.
She died in East Hampshire on 10 June 1992, aged 88.