Lord Bledisloe, Charles Bathurst Country Life Magazine Portrait December 14 1929

Lord Bledisloe, Charles Bathurst Country Life Magazine Portrait, Frontispiece, December 14 1929. LXVI No. 1717

The featured frontispiece this week is a portrait of Lord Bledisloe, recently appointed Governor-General of New Zealand.

• Identity: Charles Bathurst, 1st Baron Bledisloe (1867–1958), a British Conservative politician and agriculturalist.
• Appointment: He was appointed Governor-General of New Zealand in 1929, succeeding General Sir Charles Fergusson, and was formally sworn in at Wellington on March 19, 1930.
• Public Service: Prior to his appointment, he had a distinguished political career in Britain and was known for his interest in agriculture and rural affairs.
• Sporting Legacy: Lord Bledisloe is best remembered for donating the Bledisloe Cup in 1931, the celebrated rugby union trophy contested between New Zealand and Australia.
• Other Contributions: A generous patron of sport and culture, he also endowed trophies for chess and agricultural exhibitions, reflecting his wide-ranging interests.
• Historical Note: The early matches associated with the Bledisloe Cup remain a subject of debate, with differing claims between the 1931 and 1932 contests.

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.