Early Life
Born Ottoline Violet Anne Cavendish-Bentinck, she was the daughter of Lieutenant-General Arthur Cavendish-Bentinck and his wife, the former Augusta Mary Elizabeth Browne, later created Baroness Bolsover. Lady Ottoline's great-great-uncle (through her paternal grandmother, Lady Anne Wellesley) was Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. Ottoline was granted the rank of a daughter of a duke with the courtesy title of "Lady" when her half-brother William succeeded to the Dukedom of Portland in 1879, at which time the family moved into Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire. The dukedom was a title which belonged to the Cavendish-Bentinck family and which passed to Lady Ottoline's branch upon their cousin William Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck's death.
Lady Ottoline was a descendant of Bess of Hardwick and as such had many aristocratic connections. Her best-known relative was her cousin Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who married the Duke of York (later King George VI) in 1923, became Queen when his brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated in 1936, and who spent much of the twentieth century known as the Queen Mother.
Read more about this topic: Lady Ottoline Morrell
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