Venitia, William and June Hay in 1936.
The Clan Hay Society has lost a valued and long standing supporter with the death on 4th April of Lady Venetia Davies, at the age of 86.
She was born Venetia Constance Kathleen Luz Hay in 1929, the eldest (and last survivor) of the 14th Earl of Kinnoull’s three children by his second wife, Mary Meyrick. Orphaned at the age of nine with the premature deaths, within three months, of both her parents, the Kinnoull children were brought up by her mother’s sister, Lady de Clifford, in Gloucestershire. Through her mother she was the granddaughter of Kate Meyrick, the Irish night club owner who was the notorious proprietor of the 43 Club in London’s Soho during the years after the First World War. She told fascinating stories of her spirited grandmother, who was incarcerated in Holloway Prison no fewer than five times for blatantly disregarding the licensing laws.
She married Major J.T. Davies in 1953 and they went on to have two daughters, Nicola and Sally, who survive her. They settled in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire and became enthusiastic members of the Clan Hay Society, regular attenders at our annual gathering at the Aboyne Games from its inception in 1982. After Joe’s death from cancer she moved to Folkestone to be nearer her family and spent her last years with her daughter Sally at her home in Gloucestershire, where she had spent much of her childhood. She continued to support Clan Hay Society events in London and South East England well into her declining years.
Venetia will be remembered at a funeral service on 15th April in Gloucestershire, where lessons will be read by the Chief, the Earl of Erroll, and her nephew, the Earl of Kinnoull.
We send our sympathy to Nicola, Sally and her grandchildren.