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(George) James Henry Lees-Milne (6 August 1908 – 28 December 1997) was an English writer and expert on country houses, who worked for the National Trust from 1936 to 1973. He was an architectural historian, novelist and biographer and his extensive diaries remain in print. ==Life and career== Lees-Milne was born into a prosperous manufacturing family on 6 August 1908 in Wickhamford, Worcestershire. He attended Lockers Park School in Hertfordshire, Eton, and Oxford University from which he graduated with a Third Class in History in 1931.〔''Oxford University Calendar 1932'', Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1932, pg.299〕 From 1931 to 1935, he was Private Secretary to George Lloyd, 1st Baron Lloyd of Dolobran.〔〔James Lees-Milne, ''Ancestral Voices'' (London: Chatto & Windus, 1975), 6n1〕 In 1936 he was appointed secretary of the Country Houses Committee of the National Trust.〔 He held that position until 1950, apart from a period of military service from 1939–1941. During that time he was a regular contributor to the Trust's member newsletter, penning various features. He was instrumental in the first large-scale transfer of country houses from private ownership to the Trust. After resigning his full-time position in 1950, he continued his connection with the National Trust as a part-time architectural consultant and member of committees. Lees-Milne was visiting Diana Mosley when King Edward VIII abdicated. His visit there was to examine the seventeenth-century house she and her husband Sir Oswald Mosley were then renting; he recorded later how he and Diana (her husband was in London) had listened to the King's broadcast abdication speech with tears running down their faces. He had loved her brother Tom Mitford when they were at Eton College, and was devastated when Tom was killed in action in Burma in 1945. He married Alvilde, Viscountess Chaplin, née Bridges, a prominent gardening and landscape expert, in 1951.〔 Alvilde Lees-Milne died in 1994. Both Lees-Milne and Alvilde were bisexual, and Alvilde is reputed to have had lesbian affairs with Vita Sackville-West and Winnaretta Singer, among others.〔(Review of ''Diaries, 1971–1983'' by James Lees-Milne, ''Sunday Express'' ), retrieved 18 November 2007〕 After thirteen years living at Alderley Grange, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire〔Michael Bloch 'James Lees-Milne – The Life' – see Sources〕 and a brief sojourn in Bath, he and Alvilde resided after 1974 at Essex House on the Badminton estate, also in Gloucestershire, while he worked most days in William Thomas Beckford's library at Lansdown Crescent. While living in Badminton he entered a feud with his landlord, the Duke of Beaufort, whose passion for foxhunting and autocratic manner appalled him. As a Trustee of the Bath Preservation Trust, he became a Founding Trustee of its Beckford's Tower Trust, established in 1977 to preserve and maintain the building and its collection for public benefit. He was a friend of many of the most prominent British intellectual and social figures of his day, including Nancy Mitford, Harold Nicolson—about whom he wrote a two-volume biography—Deborah Mitford, and Cyril Connolly. From 1947 Lees-Milne published a series of architectural works aimed primarily at the general reader. He was also a diarist, and his witty, waspish and extensive diaries were published in twelve volumes. Well received, they have attracted a cult following. His other works included several biographies and an autobiographical novel. In 1993 Lees-Milne declined the offer of a CBE in the New Year's Honours list.〔(24 January 2012 )〕 Lees-Milne died in hospital at Tetbury on 28 December 1997.〔 His ashes, together with those of his wife, Alvilde, were scattered in the grounds of Essex House. A series of three plays inspired by Lees-Milne's diaries—''Sometimes into the Arms of God'', ''The Unending Battle'' and ''What England Owes''—were broadcast by the BBC in July 2013.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036y2jb )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「James Lees-Milne」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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