Jewels of Too Beautiful British Model Margaret Audrey White Head to Auction

The personal jewellery collection of the late Margaret Audrey White, later styled Lady Wardington, is coming to the block at Noonans Mayfair on March 10 in the sale titled “Jewellery, Watches, Silver and Objects of Vertu.” The consignors are her direct descendants, and highlighted lots include ear pendants with 4.5 ct and 4.2 ct Colombian emeralds and diamonds estimated at £8,000–£12,000, and a cluster brooch/pendant set with yellow and blue sapphires, emeralds, aquamarine and rubies with 0.75 ct t.w. of old brilliant‑cut diamonds, estimated at £4,000–£6,000.

Frances Noble, head of jewellery at Noonans, says the collection’s provenance is clear in the original cases that accompany many pieces. “Many of the jewels to be auctioned were gifts from Lord Wardington, as evidenced by their original cases from prestigious City of London jewelers located near his offices,” Noble notes, tying the jewels to the social and professional world of Margaret White’s husband, Christopher Henry Beaumont ‘Bic’ Pease, 2nd Lord Wardington, a stockbroker and noted bibliophile whom she married in 1964.

Catalogues list further items that speak to mid‑century taste and domestic life. A purse set is described as “set to fetch £20,000” and a diamond bracelet is noted among the lots to be dispersed from Wardington Manor, the Oxfordshire home where the couple raised their three children. Noonans frames the sale as a chance to acquire mid‑20th‑century provenance with personal family history intact.

Margaret Audrey White’s earlier public profile remains part of the cachet around these pieces. A 1950s British fashion icon, she was a well‑known face in early 1950s newspapers, appeared as a bride in National Savings posters and took small parts in a handful of films. She later transitioned into fashion journalism and became fashion editor of Housewife magazine. She was famously, and somewhat colourfully, remembered as being once dubbed too “severely beautiful” for the BBC and turned down for a presenting job in case she “alarmed timid men from Wigan.” One commentator asked, “Could you watch Miss White talking about depressions over Iceland and absorb what she was saying?”

Lady Wardington used her public profile later in life to champion financial independence for women, creating a money management course for them. She died in 2014 at the age of 87. Noonans will present the collection in its March 10 sale, offering collectors tangible connections to a model, editor and campaigner whose jewels carry both gemstone weight and a distinctly British social provenance. Top: Margaret Audrey White, the future Lady Wardington (photos courtesy of Noonans).