Lady Reith nee Muriel Katharine Odham Country Life Magazine Portrait February 5 1927

Lady Reith nee Muriel Katharine Odham Country Life Magazine Portrait, Frontispiece, February 5 1927. LXI No. 1568

The featured frontispiece this week is a portrait of Lady Reith, wife of Sir John Reith, formerly Managing Director of the British Broadcasting Company and later the first Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

• Identity: Lady Reith was Muriel Katharine Odham, wife of Sir John Reith, a central figure in the founding of the BBC.
• Sir John Reith: He served as Managing Director of the British Broadcasting Company (1922–1926) and then as the first Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation (1927–1938).
• Family: The couple had two children:
  • Christopher John Reith (1928–2016), later 2nd Baron Reith
  • Marista Muriel Reith (1932–2019), later known as Marista Leishman

This is an authentic original page from Country Life magazine, part of the iconic series often affectionately referred to as the “Girls in Pearls” portraits — elegant society images that captured a distinctive era of British publishing and portraiture.

Size: Approximately 13.75 x 9 inches (35 x 23 cm)

Condition: Very good for its age. As with all vintage magazine pages, light signs of handling or minor age-related blemishes may be present. Please review the large photo carefully for full condition details.

This original Country Life Magazine frontispiece portrait forms part of The Old Map Shop’s curated archive of society portraits published between 1897 and 2026.