Stephen Tennant

Stephen James Napier Tennant (21 April 1906 – 28 February 1987) was a British socialite known for his decadent, eccentric lifestyle. He was a central member of the socialite group referred to as "Bright Young Things" by the tabloid press of the time. Early life Tennant was born into British nobility, the youngest son of a Scottish peer, Edward Tennant, 1st Baron Glenconner, and the former Pamela Wyndham, one of the Wyndham sisters and of The Souls clique. His mother was also a cousin of Lord Alfred Douglas (1870–1945), Oscar Wilde's lover and a sonneteer. On his father's death, Tennant's mother married Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, a fellow bird-lover. Tennant's eldest brother Edward – "Bim" – was killed in the First World War. His elder brother David Tennant founded the Gargoyle Club in Soho. Social set During the 1920s and 1930s, Tennant was an important member – the "Brightest", it is said – of the "Bright Young Things". His friends included Rex Whistler, Cecil Beaton, the Sitwells, Lady Diana Manners and the Mitford girls. He is widely considered to be the model for Cedric Hampton in Nancy Mitford's novel Love in a Cold Climate, one of the inspirations for Lord Sebastian Flyte in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, and a model for the Hon. Miles Malpractice in some of Waugh's other novels.