Nadine Muriel, Countess of Shrewsbury - Obituary from Daily Telegraph 3 Mar 2003

Nadine, Countess of Shrewsbury and Waterford, who has died aged 90, was an accomplished operatic singer, stylish hostess and for many years, to the outside world at least, an advertisement for domestic happiness.

Her husband, the 21st Earl of Shrewsbury and Waterford, the premier Earl of England and Ireland, was a hands-on farmer at Ingestre, his estate in Staffordshire; when he set up a roadside stall to sell his produce, his wife served over the counter.

At the same time Lord Shrewsbury encouraged his wife's ambitions as a singer; in 1954, at the age of 41 and after producing six children, she made her debut as the soprano "Nadine Talbot" in a recital at the Wigmore Hall, with songs by Handel, Mozart and Purcell.

Three years later, after nursing her husband through polio, Lady Shrewsbury was the driving force behind Opera at Ingestre, a highly professional opera season which seemed destined to become a
Glyndebourne of the Midlands. Sir John Pritchard came as conductor and Anthony Besch as producer, and the programme featured Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and de Falla's Master Peter's Puppet Show.

The festival was extended the next year, but never took place again; for in 1959 the Shrewsburys became involved in a celebrated divorce case after Lord Shrewsbury sued his wife on the ground of adultery. Named as co-respondent was Anthony Lowther, the Earl's former private secretary, and tutor to their children. Lowther was 27 at the time, the Countess 45.

The case, the longest of its kind since the war, lasted for 18 days, and the press pounced upon the piquant detail set out in Mr Justice Collingwood's 20,000-word judgment. The Daily Telegraph's report was punctuated with sub-headings such as "Butler Saw A Pair of Shoes" and "Kissing Seen: The Blue Landing".

Lady Shrewsbury was born Nadine Muriel Crofton on January 24 1913, the daughter of Brigadier-General Cyril Randell Crofton, of Trobridge, Crediton. Boarding school in Devon was followed by finishing school in Florence, and in 1933 the dark-haired, handsome Nadine Crofton met John Chetwynd-Talbot, the 21st Earl of Shrewsbury and Waterford and 6th Earl of Talbot. A godson of King George V and Queen Mary, he had left Eton the previous year, and was soon to inherit large estates in the Midlands and the patronage of 11 livings.

Perhaps because she was two years his senior, there was opposition from Lord Shrewsbury's family to the match, but they eventually married in 1936, and went to live at Ingestre Hall.

On the outbreak of war, Lord Shrewsbury joined the Royal Artillery. According to evidence later adduced in the divorce case, he met Nina Mortlock in 1941 and they began an affair; Lady Shrewsbury said he subsequently told her that he wanted a divorce. After returning home on demobilisation, the Earl took up again with Nina Mortlock; the affair continued on and off over the next decade.

In 1954 Anthony Lowther, then 21 and just down from Cambridge, arrived at Ingestre as tutor to the Shrewsburys' four daughters, who were to be educated at home. Soon he was undertaking other duties, such as overseeing the opening of the gardens, and helping to reduce household expenditure.

In the latter endeavour he was notably successful, which did not endear him to some of the other members of staff, who later gave evidence in the divorce case. The Earl gradually came to rely on
Lowther more and more; in 1957 he served as the administrative manager of the first opera festival. But in 1958 the Earl learnt that his wife had had a miscarriage, and it was suggested by her gynaecologist's secretary that the father was Lowther. The Earl confronted his wife, and shortly afterwards served a petition for divorce.

At the court case servants at Ingestre were called to give evidence, much of which was trivial or speculative. It emerged, for instance, that Lowther was treated as a member of the family, that he called the Earl "John" and that the Earl sometimes called him "Tonykins". Lady Shrewsbury called Lowther "darling", although this was a term of affection he clearly shared with others.

It was not denied that the respondents kissed each other night and morning and when either had been away. Lowther often came to the Earl and Countess's bedroom after they had retired because he had been exercising their dogs with his own.

Worthy of more consideration, said the judge, was that Lowther and the Countess were seen on occasions walking hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm in the grounds; for their part, they said this happened only very rarely, when the slippery conditions required him to give her some assistance. Witnesses also spoke of occasions when servants entered a room and the two of them jumped apart. They had also been seen kissing passionately on the Blue Landing.

Most persuasive of all, so far as the judge was concerned, was the evidence of the former family doctor, who said that, in 1956, Lady Shrewsbury telephoned him to say she had "slipped up with an old lover and must do something about it". Lady Shrewsbury vigorously denied this. The doctor also recalled how Lady Shrewsbury had told him that she was in love with a man younger than herself, but that this lover was now rejecting her. This, too, said Lady Shrewsbury, was fiction.

The judge said that, although the doctor was clearly partisan and went out of his way to emphasise matters against Lady Shrewsbury, he was not prepared to find that his evidence was a "wicked invention". Neither was he minded to decide that a housekeeper who read a passionate letter from the Countess to Lowther ending with the words "At this late hour are you afraid of being found out?" had perjured herself.

The woman had also found another letter in Lowther's desk from the Countess, in which she appeared to be giving him the opportunity of removing himself gracefully from their alleged relationship. On another occasion, Lowther was heard to say to the Countess: "Nanny knows too much, she must go."

The judge concluded that, while much of the evidence of association between Lady Shrewsbury and Lowther was capable of perfectly innocent interpretation, some of it was not. He therefore found the case against them proved. Afterwards, both Lowther and Lady Shrewsbury were dignified and persuasive in continuing to deny any affair.

The Earl had asked the judge to exercise his discretion concerning his own admitted adultery, claiming that there were extenuating circumstances, not the least of them being the fact that his wife had told him that she could never love anyone as she had loved her previous boyfriend, Roger Corbett, the steeplechase jockey who died in a car accident in 1938.

When he returned to England in 1944, Lord Shrewsbury said, his wife told him that she had had an affair with a Frenchman. He claimed she became increasingly violent-tempered and unkind. It was in these circumstances, he said, that he had fallen back into the arms of Nina Mortlock, although he was still intent on saving the marriage. But the judge found his evidence inconsistent with other letters which showed deep affection between husband and wife.

The judge decided that Lady Shrewsbury's conduct did not afford an explanation for the Earl's own adultery, and its resumption, and therefore refused the Earl's petition for divorce.

After the case, Lady Shrewsbury told reporters she was determined to get her husband back "for the sake of the poor, unhappy children". She did not, she said, believe in divorce, neither did she feel jealousy towards Nina Mortlock. "I am sorry for her. I am sorry if she has loved and wanted my husband all these years and hasn't been able to have him."

A month later, Lord Shrewsbury arranged for Sotheby's to auction the entire contents of Ingestre Hall, and to sell the house itself. While Lady Shrewsbury and the children continued to live there, Lord Shrewsbury sent out letters to tradesmen saying that they were not to continue their credit arrangements. Having sold the house he went to live on Madeira to grow bananas with Nina Mortlock, later moving to Switzerland.

In 1962 Lady Shrewsbury sued her husband for divorce, having given up hope of ever getting him back. The next year she was granted a decree nisi. The judge, Mr Justice Ormrod, said that, without impugning the previous judge's decision, or attempting any reassessment of Lady Shrewsbury's credibility, there was a possibility that she was telling the truth when she denied adultery. Lord Shrewsbury subsequently married Nina Mortlock.

Nadine, Lady Shrewsbury, meanwhile, resumed her singing career, under the name of Nadine Credi (short for Crediton). She studied under Dame Maggie Teyte, performed again at Wigmore Hall and sang Rosina in the Barber of Seville at Hintlesham. She also worked for a time with Lotte Nicholls, the musicians' agent.

A caring and loving character, with a great fund of amusing stories, she was always interested in what others had to say.

She died on February 19, and is survived by her two sons and four daughters.
[From Daily Telegraph, 3 Mar 2003]