[1] She was the daughter of the politician and lawyer Harry Nathan, 1st Baron Nathan, who served in the British Army,[2] and his wife Eleanor Joan Clara (Nellie), née Stettauer, a future late 1940s London County Council chairperson,[1] and an important person in the Jewish community.
[4] Following their marriage, Waley-Cohen supported her husband in his career as she raised their children and maintaining their house in St James's, Piccadilly and their 1,000-acre (400 ha) farm estate located close to the edge of Exmoor, where they kept sheep and a herd of Devon cattle.
Waley-Cohen planned social occasions at the house and toured Australia in 1961 in which London's Lord Mayor made his first official visit to Melbourne.
[1] In the late 1980s, Waley-Cohen settled down at Exmoor and took up gardening and started the craft tent at the Exford Show.
[2] Waley-Cohen was a feverent supporter of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds,[2] and presented its first meet following its ban by the National Trust in 1997.