Osla Benning
Lady Henniker-Major | |
|---|---|
 Benning in March 1939 | |
| Born | Margaret Osla Benning 23 August 1921 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Died | 29 October 1974 (aged 53) Kensington, London, England |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
Margaret Osla, Lady Henniker-Major (née Benning; 23 August 1921 – 29 October 1974) was a Canadian debutante, who worked at Bletchley Park, was Prince Philip's first girlfriend, and later married Sir John Henniker-Major (who became the 8th Baron Henniker after her death).
Early life
[edit]Osla Benning was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada,[1] on 23 August 1921,[2] the daughter of Edith Black and James William Benning,[3] and the goddaughter of Lord Louis Mountbatten.[4]
She went to finishing school in Austria, and came out as a debutante in August 1939.[5][6] She was featured in Tatler magazine with a photograph caption reporting that she was being presented by Lady Beatty,[7] as by this time her parents were divorced. Benning was described in her youth as having “dark hair, alabaster white skin, an exquisite figure and a gentle loving nature”.[8]
Prince Philip
[edit]
Benning went to stay with her godfather Lord Louis Mountbatten, who mentioned to her friend (and fellow goddaughter) Sarah Baring that Prince Philip (Mountbatten's nephew) did not have a girlfriend and Baring acted as matchmaker.[5]
Benning and the Prince were both 18 years old when they met.[9] They had a romance,[10] and according to Baring, "It was obvious that he was Osla's boyfriend in a simple, nice way, so to speak. Every time his ship came back, it was Osla he would ring".[5] They exchanged letters while he was posted overseas,[9] and he bought her a bejewelled brooch with a naval cipher.[8]
"I do know that he was her first love," says her daughter, Jane Spring. "She never told me about him for years. She just said: 'I fell in love with a naval officer'."[5] They later drifted apart.
World War II and Bletchley Park
[edit]Early in the Second World War, Benning was sent to distant relations in Canada, but travelled back to England through Portugal.[7] She and Baring went to build Hurricane fighter planes for the Royal Air Force at a Hawker Siddeley factory,[6] close to Slough, and shared a cottage nearby.[11] A few months later, by summer 1941, they were both tested on their German language skills and posted to Hut 4 at Bletchley Park, the naval section, as linguists.[5][6][11] They were billeted together at the White Horse Inn.[12]
At Bletchley, Benning was known as someone with a good sense of humour who liked to play practical jokes.[7] Her Bletchley supervisor Pamela Rose described Benning as "a very pretty girl" who was "tremendous fun", "spoke German" and "had a lot of confidence."[7] She also recalled that Benning and a friend would "catch the milk float from London to Bletchley at the crack of dawn and would do their shift in party dresses".[7] Another story of Benning's time working at Bletchley claims that when Lord Mountbatten visited with senior military men, she exclaimed "Uncle Dickie, what are you doing here?"[9]
Kate Quinn’s 2021 novel about Bletchley Park, The Rose Code, features a character named Osla Kendall, who is based heavily on Osla Benning.
Personal life
[edit]She was briefly engaged to Guy Millard, a British diplomat who later became Ambassador to Switzerland, but they did not marry.[13]
She married John Patrick Edward Chandos Henniker-Major (later 8th Baron Henniker and Ambassador to Denmark) on 18 December 1946.[14]
They had two sons and one daughter:[15]
- Mark Ian Philip Chandos Henniker-Major, 9th Baron Henniker (born 29 September 1947), married Lesley Antoinette Foskett. Prince Philip was his godfather.[9]
- Hon. Charles John Giles Henniker-Major (2 September 1949 – 9 May 2012), married Sally Kemp Newby
- Hon. Jane Elizabeth Henniker-Major (born 6 July 1954)
Her husband was knighted in the 1965 New Years Honours List and succeeded as the 8th Baron Henniker in 1980.[15]
Death
[edit]Benning died of cancer in Kensington,[2] London, on 29 October 1974,[4] at the age of 53.
References
[edit]- ^ New York Passenger Lists. Family Search. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
- ^ a b Margaret Osla Henniker-Major England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007. Family Search. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
- ^ "Ancestry® | Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History Records". www.ancestry.ca. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
- ^ a b "Osla Benning". spartacus-educational.com. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
- ^ a b c d e "The romances of young Prince Philip". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 10 October 2017.
- ^ a b c Fox, Elyse; Kintz, Laura; Mantzaris, Nicola (29 March 2018). "Women's History Month: Celebrating Women from the Kennedy Family Collection Nitrate Negatives". The JFK Library Archives: An Inside Look. Retrieved 15 April 2020.
- ^ a b c d e Dunlop, Tessa (4 April 2023). Elizabeth & Philip: A Story of Young Love, Marriage, and Monarchy. Simon and Schuster. pp. 23–27. ISBN 978-1-63936-399-5.
- ^ a b Langton, Kaisha (11 September 2019). "Prince Philip royal romance: How Prince Philip fell for the Queen". Express.co.uk. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
- ^ a b c d Lloyd, Ian (18 February 2021). "Chapter 16 First Love". The Duke: 100 Chapters in the Life of Prince Philip. The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7509-9699-0.
- ^ McKay, Sinclair (1 November 2013). The Lost World of Bletchley Park: An Illustrated History of the Wartime Codebreaking Centre. Aurum Press. p. 63. ISBN 978-1-78131-191-2.
- ^ a b "Sarah Baring". 15 February 2013. Retrieved 11 October 2017 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
- ^ Trumpington, Jean (24 April 2014). Coming Up Trumps: A Memoir. Pan Macmillan. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-4472-5677-9.
- ^ Vickers, Hugo (2000). Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece. Hamish Hamilton. p. 319. ISBN 978-0-241-13686-7.
- ^ Mosley, Charles, ed. (2003) Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, p. 1871
- ^ a b Clark, Peter (4 May 2004). "Obituary: Lord Henniker | Politics". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 October 2017.