Greville Ivy Leaf Clips

Next week marks the 160th Anniversary of the Birth of Dame Margaret Greville, the Hon Mrs Greville The illegitimate daughter of a brewery millionaire, she married the son of a Baron, and became a noted Society Hostess, from her magnificent home at Polesden Lacey, getting close to the Queen Mother, to whom she left her enormous Jewellery Collection, so we are featuring several of her jewels, starting with the Greville Ivy Leaf Clips!

Comprising a central brilliant diamond and pavé-set Ivy Leaves in platinum, the first of these striking Brooches were made for the Hon Mrs Greville at Cartier in 1930, with the identical second clip being commissioned in 1937.

Dame Margaret Greville, the Hon Mrs Greville was not pictured wearing the Ivy Leaf Clips, and on her death in 1942, the majority of her magnificent Jewellery Collection, all pieces valued over 100 pounds, was inherited by Queen Elizabeth. In 1942, the Queen wrote to Queen Mary:

I must tell you that Mrs Greville has left me her jewels, She has left them to me ‘with her loving thoughts,’ dear old thing, and I feel very touched, I don’t suppose I shall see what they consist of for a long time, owing to the slowness of lawyers & death duties etc, but it is rather exciting to be left something, and I do admire beautiful stones with all my heart.”

When the jewels arrived to the Queen a few months later, there was much unwanted press attention on the contents of the initialled black trunk, which included the Greville Diamond Tiara, an Emerald Tiara, the Festoon Necklace, the Diamond Chandelier Earrings, a Ruby Necklace, two Emerald Necklaces, and a pair of Pearl Earrings, alongside several spectacular Diamond Earrings, Necklaces, Brooches and Bracelets, the true extent of which has never been publicly revealed.

A few years later, when Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) celebrated her 21st Birthday while on an extensive Tour of South Africa, she received the Greville Ivy Leaf Clips as a gift from her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the same day she received her South African Diamonds.

Princess Elizabeth began wearing the Greville Ivy Leaf Clips following her wedding in 1947, with several notable appearances in 1949, when the Brooches were worn on a Tour of Yorkshire and at Royal Ascot, before being taken with the Princess to Malta, where she and the Duke of Edinburgh resided for a period. In addition to daytime events, the Ivy Clips were worn on the edge of her necklace for evening events, like the Royal Film Performance of ‘Mudlark’ in 1950.

Princess Elizabeth often wore the Greville Ivy Leaf Clips on her extensive Tour of Canada in 1951, most notably in Toronto, and they were also creatively worn on her visit to Washington, D.C, being also worn for their return to London.

One of the most notable appearances came the following year, when the Clips were worn by Princess Elizabeth at Sagana Lodge in Kenya, where that evening, the ‘Princess went up a tree and came down a Queen’.

Following her accession to the Throne, the Queen was rarely pictured wearing the Greville Ivy Leaf Clips until the 2000s, when they came back into semi-regular rotation, being worn for a visit to the Ministry of Defence in 2004 and a Reception at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2016.

In the last year of her life, the Queen wore the Greville Ivy Leaf Clips for a series of photographs taken at Sandringham House in Norfolk as she marked the 70th Anniversary of her Accession, a nod to her parents on the poignant anniversary and her having worn it 70 years ago.

A few months later, the Greville Ivy Leaf Clips made their final public appearance on the Queen, for an audience with the Emir of Qatar at Windsor Castle, just a few days before the Platinum Jubilee Celebrations. Now, following her death, the Clips must have been inherited by King Charles so we await their reappearance.