She studied at St John's Wood Art School where she learned stage design, interior decoration and illustration.
[2] During the inter-war years she developed a keen social conscience and used her prominent position to help communities in need.
In 1932 she helped establish the Cleveland Work Camps, a self-help scheme aimed at alleviating the poverty of unemployed iron-stone miners during the Great Depression.
[3][4] In the late 1930s, as chair of the local branch of the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief,[5] she was instrumental in rescuing a group of Basque refugee children from the Spanish Civil War, travelling to Barcelona and later arranging their accommodation at Hutton Hall in North Yorkshire.
Shakespeare was a particular favourite and over many years she staged his plays on the lawn at her stately home, creating the costumes, set designs and promotional posters herself.