Elizabeth Kenward ( Kemp-Welch; 1906–2001) was an English magazine columnist, known for writing "Jennifer's Diary", originally in Tatler, subsequently in Queen.
Life She was born on 14 July 1906, the daughter of Brian Charles Durant Kemp-WelchSend More Shrouds: The V1 Attack on the Guards' Chapel 1944, Jan Gore, Pen and Sword, 2017, p. 115 of Kineton, Warwickshire, England, and was educated by a governess, and at a finishing school at Les Tourelles, Brussels, Belgium. The Kemp-Welch family were 'solid county Warwickshire stock',The Spectator, vol. 255, 1985, p. appearing in Burke's Landed Gentry. Her brother was the cricketer George Kemp-Welch who married the eldest daughter of Stanley Baldwin.
She married Captain Peter Trayton KenwardWorld Who's Who of Women 1990/1, Taylor & Francis, 1990, vol. 10, p. 463 of the 14th/20th King's Hussars, employed in his family's brewing business,The New York Times Biographical Service, vol. 32, New York Times & Arno Press, 2001, p. 247 at St Margaret's, Westminster, in 1932, and adopted his name. They divorced in 1942, leaving her with a nine-year-old son. To pay his fees at Winchester School, she worked as a dame (house matron) at Eton College. Captain Kenward remarried, to Patricia (1918–1957), daughter of Bolton Meredith Eyres-Monsell, 1st Viscount Monsell, in 1947,Burke's Peerage, 2003, vol. 2, p. 2045Dod's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of Great Britain, ed. Charles Roger Dod, Roger Phipps Dod, 1960, p. 396 and in 1958 to Bridget Catherine Elizabeth Tucker (1928–2015).Joan: Beauty, Rebel, Muse: The Remarkable Life of Joan Leigh Fermor, Simon Fenwick, Pan Macmillan, 2017
Her Tatler column was originally called "On and Off Duty in Town and Country", becoming "Jennifer's Diary" in 1945. She took it to Queen (from 1970 Harpers & Queen) in 1959. She retired in 1991, when she was aged 84. Her obituary in The Daily Telegraph described her as "insufferably snobbish and crotchety", recounting her ferocious treatment of her assistants (many of whom resigned in tears), her propensity for long-running feuds (including, particularly, with Margaret, Duchess of Argyll), and her persistent snubbing of Tatlers social editor, Peter Townend.
She appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 14 December 1974.
She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1986. Her autobiography, Jennifer's Memoirs: Eighty-Five Years of Fun and Functions, was published in 1992.
She died on 24 January 2001 in London.
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