Miss Rachel Spender-Clay Country Life Magazine Portrait October 13 1928

Miss Rachel Spender-Clay Country Life Magazine Portrait, Frontispiece, October 13 1928. LXIV No. 1656

The featured frontispiece this week is a portrait of Miss Rachel Spender-Clay, younger daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel H. H. Spender-Clay and the Hon. Mrs. Spender-Clay, whose engagement has recently been announced.

• Family: She was the daughter of Lt-Col Herbert Spender-Clay, Member of Parliament, and Pauline Astor of the prominent Astor family.
• Engagement: She became engaged to the Hon. David Bowes-Lyon, youngest son of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore.
• Royal Connection: David Bowes-Lyon was the brother of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, making Rachel connected to the future royal family.
• Marriage: The couple married on February 6, 1929, at St Margaret’s, Westminster.
• Later Life: She became known as Lady Bowes-Lyon and served as a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen Mother.
• Children: They had two children:
  • Davina Katherine Bowes-Lyon (1930–2017)
  • Sir Simon Alexander Bowes-Lyon (born 1932)

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.