Bessie Wallis Warfield

Bessie Wallis Warfield, the Duchess of Windsor, certainly one of our most fascinating relatives. According to the cousin chart Bessie Wallis Warfield would be a fourth cousin three times removed to me and a fourth cousin four times removed to you. Fourth cousin really doesn't seem that distant considering our relationships to some other famous people.

I'll explain our Warfield family connections that makes us cousins, both Bessie Wallis Warfield and our family go back to a common ancestor and in this case it's Seth Warfield, Sr, born about Jan. 15, 1723 and died after 1790. He was married to Mary Gaither and they had 10 children. Seth, Sr. resided just west of South River, Maryland and later took 1,500 acres north and east of Lisbon, in what after 1850 was to be called Howard County, Maryland. Seth, Sr. was a signer of the Oath of Fidelity during the Revolutionary War.

Bessie Wallis Warfield's linage from Seth, Sr. is as follows: (1) Beni (Benoni, Bain, Basil) Warfield, lived in Anne Arundel County (now Howard County) at the junction of the Old Frederick and Woodbine Roads near Lisbon, Maryland. Beni married Ariana (Mary Ann) Dorsey, Beni and Ariana had eight children. (2) Among Beni and Ariana's children was Daniel Warfield whose second wife was Ann (Nancy) Mactier. Daniel and Ann (Nancy) had 6 children. (3) One of the sons of Daniel and Ann (Nancy) Mactier was Henry Mactier Warfield who lived in Baltimore, he married Anna Emory and they had 7 children. (4) A son of Henry Mactier Warfield and Anna Emory was Teakle Wallis Warfield who lived in both Maryland and what is now West Virginia. Teakle Wallis Warfield married Alys Montague and they had one child, (5) Bessie Wallis Warfield.

Bessie Wallis Warfield, daughter of Teakle Wallis Warfield and Alys Montague. She married: (1) Earl Winfield Spencer; (2) Ernest Aldrich Simpson; (3) HRH Prince Edward Albert, Duke of Windsor (1937). He was the Prince of Wales, eldest son of King George V and Queen Mary of the British Empire, acceded to the throne on Jan. 20, 1936 upon the death of his father. He was 42, popular with the people, and unmarried when he was proclaimed as King Edward VIII.

A great-grandson of Queen Victoria, he descended from King James I of the House of Stuart through Princess Elizabeth whose nephew was James II. It was this King James who, deposed from his throne in 1688, aroused the sympathy and support of Lord Baltimore and the Jacobites of Maryland.

King Edward VIII relinquished his throne, prior to coronation, on Dec. 11, 1936 and thereafter was named the Duke of Windsor by Royal Patent. He was married to Wallis Warfield on Jun 3, 1937 at Chateau de Cande near Monts, France by French civil and English church services.

The Duchess, a woman of impeccable grooming and taste, was a permanent place in the Fashion Hall of Fame as one of the world's best-dressed women.

How we became cousins to Bessie Wallis Warfield can best be answered by going back to our joint ancestor Seth Warfield, Sr. and Mary Gaither and explaining our Warfield family linage from them and it was through another of their 10 children: (1) Seth Warfield, Jr. born about 1752 and died after 1790. Seth Warfield, Jr. married Ruth Welsh who was born about 1754, they had eight children. "The eldest son Seth settled on a tract of land called Warfield Harvest". (2) Among Seth and Ruth's children was a daughter (Nancy) Ann Warfield, born about 1775, died after 1850, married June 6, 1797 to John H. Lansdale. (Nancy) Ann and John H. Lansdale had three children. (3) A daughter Nancy Ann Lansdale, born March 17, 1814, died October 11, 1880, married Denton Driver, born April 7, 1813 and died June 19, 1894. Nancy Ann and Denton were married about 1837 and they had 7 children. (4) Among their children was James W. Driver, born May 20, 1845, died Feb. 18, 1922, he married Mary S. Beall, born Nov. 19, 1845, died April 16, 1914, James and Mary were married about 1869 and they had five children. (5) A daughter of James and Mary Driver was Lucy Amelia Driver, born April 17, 1871, died February 14, 1947, Lucy Amelia married George Francis Hilton, born Sept. 12, 1866 and died Sept. 12, 1901, they were married about 1895 and had two sons, George Earl Hilton and James Francis Hilton, George Earl is my grandfather. (6) George Earl Hilton, born Dec. 24, 1901, died April 20, 1984 married Stella V. Mullinix born March 5, 1905 and died August 22, 1999, Earl and Stella were married on August 24, 1921 and had four children, (7) Mary Amelia Hilton (my mother) born July 7, 1922, died September 11, 2000, Earl Leroy, Kathryn Virginia and Robert Phillip. You and I are (8) and (9) with your children being (10).

They're guests of an admiring Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden, many historians have said that if the Germans had won WWII and occupied Great Britain that the Duke and Duchess would have been king and queen of England.
A second photo shows the Duchess having dinner with Sir Oswald Mosely, the British Facist, his wife Diana Mitford, and the Duke and Duchess were neighbors and friends in France.

The Baltimore haunts of a young Wallis Warfield. "It seems to me that we were always on the move. I desperately wanted to stay put," Wallis Warfield said of her childhood in Baltimore. These are the places where she lived and went to school. Amazingly, all of these buildings still stand - after almost 100 years.

Refer to the attachment map and the numbers starting with one through 8 for the location of each Wallis Warfield location in downtown Baltimore.

1. Brexton Residential Hotel, corner of Park Avenue and Tyson Street. Rooms rented for $1.50 a week. Now boarded up, for sale.

2. 34 E. Preston Street, home of Wallis' paternal grandmother, Anna Emory Warfield. Now boarded up, for sale.

3. 9 West Chase Street, Aunt Bessie Montague Merryman's house, now a beauty salon.

4. Preston Apartments, 200 block of East Preston Street, near Guilford Avenue.

5. 212 E. Biddle Street, "The first house of our own," wrote Wallis. She moved here at age 11 or 12, when her mother remarried. When she visited Baltimore in later years with the Duke she was riding down Calvert Street and trying to catch a glimpse of this former residence.

6. 714 St. Paul Street, Arundell School for Girls. Wallis would transfer from here to Oldfields, the fashionable school in Baltimore County. Her tuition was paid by her uncle.

7. Earl's Court apartments, St. Paul and Preston streets, where Wallis lived after her stepfather died.

8. 711 St. Paul Street, where Wallis' mother, Alice Montague, grew up. Now a lawyer's office.