[10] In 1916, Nicholson married Jaqueline Louise Rachel (1889-1972), daughter of Adrian Charles Francis Hope, descended from the Earls of Hopetoun,[11] subsequently changing his surname to Hope-Nicholson by deed-poll.
Jaqueline Hope-Nicholson was a genealogist, heraldic artist and impassioned costumier dealing with vast outdoor pageants and innumerable amateur theatricals but her greatest interest was in the Stuart kings, primarily Charles II.
[12][13] Their children were the artist Mary Lauretta Jaqueline Carola Desirée Valentine Esmé ('Lauretta', 1919–2005) who married the artist Jean Hugo in 1949 and worked as an assistant editor on the Burlington Magazine and with Richard Buckle on his publication 'Ballet'; Marie-Jaqueline Albertine Dorothea Beatrice Alexina Romaine Adriana (9 August 1922 – 17 May 2010; married in 1945 war correspondent (Herbert) Maurice Lancaster and had two daughters), who compiled Brian Howard: Portrait of a Failure in 1968, about Brian Howard; and (Charles) Felix Otho Victor Gabriel John Adrian (1921–1990), genealogist and antiquarian.
[14] According to the art historian and writer Bevis Hillier, John Betjeman wrote a libellous couplet about Hope-Nicholson and his (at the time unusual for a man) habit of using make-up: H is for Hedley, who lives in a Place.
[15]However, James Lees-Milne, in his Diaries, gave a different account and version of the poem: "John Betjeman quotes the following couplet composed by the Widow Lloyd about Hedley Hope-Nicholson, that painted- but delightful- old queen: H is for Hedley, the pride of Old Place,