| Admin/Biog History | Laura Miranda Grimond (19180-1994) was a British Liberal Party politician, and the wife of party leader Jo Grimond. She was the second child of Sir Maurice Bonham-Carter and his wife, the former Lady Violet Asquith, daughter of the Liberal Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. Her siblings were Helen, Mark, and Raymond.
Nicolson socialised regularly with the Bonham Carter family during the late 1930s, on various occasions staying at the family homes in Tilshead and Clovelly. Laura also stayed at Sissinghurst. Nicolson's diaries from 1937 record that he had fallen briefly in love with Laura, but this intensity of emotion is not revealed in Laura's correspondence to him. In 1938 Laura married Jo Grimond. |
| Description | Includes correspondence of a personal nature including invitations to various social events, mutual friends (particularly Isaiah Berlin & Stuart Hampshire) and family.
Of particular note:
-letter, sent 10 August 1937, concerning a visit with Kim Muir to the annual event of the Royal Hussars
-letter, dated 13 September 1937, concerning a walking holiday along Hadrian's Wall undertaken by Laura & Cressida Bonham-Carter, Jo Grimond and David [?]
-letter, post marked 5 February 1938, concerning Nicolson's relationship with Eleonora Thomasson and the qualities required in a wife for a successful marriage
-letter, dated 23 February 1938, concerning house hunting, housing conditions of the 'lower-classes' and Jo Grimond's attempt to find a political constituency
-letter, sent 5 April 1941, concerning Laura Grimond's war time work and her impression of Northern Ireland
Also includes a letter, undated, written by Nicolson to Bonham Carter suggesting that they visit Sissinghurst together and two press-cuttings concerning a hunting accident suffered by her in 1937 |