Australia’s entrancing Sheila

The ‘dollar princesses’, those American heiresses who crossed the Atlantic in search of a titled husband, are familiar figures from the 19th and early 20th century. Less well known are the young ladies who made the much longer journey from Australia, and who, like their transatlantic counterparts, arrived in England with large fortunes, ready to be launched on an intensely competitive marriage market.

Sheila Chisholm was one of these arrivals from ‘the Land of the Wattle’, as the colony was often described. The daughter of a wealthy grazier from New South Wales, she reached London in July 1914 with barely enough time to be presented at court before the outbreak of war. Charming and beautiful, Sheila under more peaceful conditions would undoubtedly have enjoyed a successful season; instead, she and her mother left London for Cairo, where one of her brothers was stationed with an Australian cavalry regiment. It was here that Sheila met the first of her three husbands. Lord Loughborough was the son of the notorious Earl of Rosslyn, a compulsive gambler, later immortalised as ‘the Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’.

‘Loughie’ was a pleasant fellow but hopelessly weak-willed, as Sheila discovered soon after the wedding. Like his father, he was addicted to gambling, and in addition was a lifelong alcoholic. Sheila bore him two sons and did her best to cope, but there was no reforming Loughie, so after a while she gave up, concentrating instead on a glamorous social life in the company of her best friend Freda Dudley Ward.

Freda was mistress of the Prince of Wales, and in no time at all a cosy quartet had formed, with the Prince and Freda as one couple, and his younger brother, Prince Albert (‘Bertie’), paired off with Sheila.