The dress has been spotlighted this week by the V&A Museum, which holds the gown and the accompanying veil in its collection, offering a welcome opportunity to revisit the trials and tribulations of Margaret’s life.
Born on 1 December 1912, Margaret Whigham was the only daughter of a Scottish businessman and millionaire, George Hay Whigham and his wife, Helen Mann Hannay. After completing her education in New York, she moved back to the UK, where her beauty and status as an heiress made her much in-demand on the social scene. At the age of 15, she became pregnant with the actor David Niven’s child while on a holiday on the Isle of Wight, but the pregnancy was terminated.
She was presented as a debutante in 1930, and after early romances with Prince Aly Khan, aviator Glen Kidston, Baron Martin Stillman von Brabus and publishing heir Max Aitken (later the second Lord Beaverbrook) and Prince George, Duke of Kent, she became engaged to Charles Greville, 7th Earl of Warwick. Yet the wedding was not to be, as she was soon swept off her feet by the wealthy American, Charles Sweeny, who instead became her first husband.
During her marriage to Sweeney, she had three children, one who was a stillborn girl, as well as a son Brian and a daughter Frances (who went on to marry the Duke of Rutland), and she also suffered eight miscarriages. She also almost died during a horrific accident while visiting her chiropodist, in which she fell down a lift shaft. The couple divorced in 1947, and she went on to become engaged again to Lehman Brothers banker Joseph Thomas, although they never married.
Dazzling debutante: Margaret Whigham was celebrated on the social scene before her wedding
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