[3] On 4 December 1909 she was baptized into the Church of England as Nancy Elizabeth Louise Hardy at St Mary's Church, Kilburn, with her parents recorded as Ernest Walter and Esther Beaton.

[2] Nancy Beaton was presented as a debutante at court in 1928, at the Queen Charlotte's Ball, in the presence of George V. She was part of a Bright Young Things' scandal when she, Stephen Tennant, and David Plunket Greene were thrown out from a party at the home of the Countess of Ellesmere they were crashing.

[2] In January 1933 she married Sir Hugh Houston Smiley, 3rd Baronet (1905–1990).

Constance Spry arranged the flowers and the wedding was a notable society event.

[5][6] According to her brother Cecil Beaton in The Book of Beauty (1933): "I am enthralled at the childish intentness and gaiety of Nancy when looking for a coral tiara in a curiosity shop, by the complexion that emerges from underneath the water after she has fallen off an aquaplane board, by her dazzling blondness when, like a Gainsborough, writing her diary on a haystack.