Gwladys Helen Cholmondeley, Baroness Delamere, CBE (née Beckett; 17 January 1898 – 22 February 1943),[1] formerly Lady Markham, was the first female Mayor of Nairobi from 1938 to 1940.
In March 1941 she gave evidence at the trial in Kenya of Sir Henry John Delves Broughton for the murder of Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll.
[2] In 1902 it was reported that she had been bridesmaid to Lady Helen Stewart (daughter of Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 6th Marquess of Londonderry), who married Giles Fox-Strangways, 6th Earl of Ilchester.
Her social behaviour drew attention – Isak Dinesen wrote in November that "Lady Delamere behaved scandalously at supper, I thought; she bombarded the Prince of Wales with big pieces of bread ... and finished up by rushing at him, overturning his chair and rolling him around on the floor.
"[12] However, during the 1929-31 famine when the Soysambu area was devastated by locusts, Gwladys took over the management of a hotel Delamere had opened in Iringa in 1926[13] and made it pay its way.
The article went on to discuss the challenges of urban growth facing Nairobi at the time and noted that the Council's duties included brewing and retailing beer along similar lines to the England's State Management Scheme experiment in Carlisle.
[23][24][25][26] In dramatisations of events surrounding the trial, her character was played by Susan Fleetwood in the film White Mischief (1987) and on television by Julia St. John in Julian Fellowes Investigates: A Most Mysterious Murder (2005) - episode 4 The Case of the Earl of Erroll.
[32] Gwladys returned to the news in 2007 when there was media interest surrounding the trial of Thomas Cholmondeley, Delamere's great-grandson, for shooting a poacher.