John Francis Amherst Cecil

John Francis Amherst Cecil was born on 30 June 1890 in London, England. He was the third son of Lord William Cecil (1854–1943) and Mary Rothes Margaret Tyssen-Amherst, 2nd Baroness Amherst of Hackney (1857–1919). After the death of his mother in 1919, his father remarried to Violet Maud (née Freer) Collyer.{{cite web |title=Amherst of Hackney, Baron (UK, 1892) |url=http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/amherst1892.htm |website=cracroftspeerage.co.uk |publisher=Heraldic Media Limited |access-date=11 September 2019 |archive-date=12 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160912133500/http://cracroftspeerage.co.uk/online/content/amherst1892.htm |url-status=live }} As his eldest brother, Capt. William Amherst Cecil, predeceased their mother, William's eldest son, succeeded their mother as the 3rd Baron Amherst of Hackney.

His father, a Groom-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria until her death in 1901 and an Extra Gentleman Usher from 1924 under King George V until 1937, was a younger son of the William Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Exeter and Lady Georgina Sophia Pakenham, the daughter of Thomas Pakenham, 2nd Earl of Longford. His maternal grandfather was William Tyssen-Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst of Hackney.

He attended Eton College and Oxford University.

He became the first secretary of the British Embassy in Washington in 1923. After his marriage in 1924, he resigned from his diplomatic post and moved to Biltmore, North Carolina.

In 1924, he married Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt at All Souls Cathedral in Biltmore Village. Cornelia was the only child of the late George Washington Vanderbilt II and the former Edith Stuyvesant Dresser.{{cite news |title=Miss Vanderbilt Reported Engaged. Cornelia Said to Be Betrothed to the Hon. John F.A. Cecil of British Embassy |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1924/03/06/119036077.pdf |newspaper=The New York Times |date=6 March 1924 |access-date= 11 September 2019 }} The following year, Cornelia's mother married Peter Goelet Gerry, a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, in London.{{cite news |title= Edith Vanderbilt Wed to P.G. Gerry. Marriage by London Registrar Is Followed by Service at the Savoy Chapel|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1925/10/23/archives/edith-nahderbilt-wed-to-p-g-gerry-i-marriage-by-london-registrar-is.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 23, 1925 }} Together, Cornelia and John were the parents of two children:

• George Henry Vanderbilt Cecil (1925–2020), who married Nancy Owen (1930–2016).{{cite news|last1=Patrick|first1=Emily|title=Hospital benefactor Nancy Cecil dies at 85|url=https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2016/07/11/hospital-benefactor-nancy-cecil-dies-85/86961886/|access-date=24 April 2018|work=Citizen Times|date=July 11, 2016|language=en}}
• William Amherst Vanderbilt Cecil (1928–2017){{cite news|last1=Boyle|first1=John|title=William A.V. Cecil, Vanderbilt's grandson and Biltmore owner, dead at 89|url=https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2017/10/31/biltmore-estate-owner-dies-william-cecil/817659001/|access-date=24 April 2018|work=Citizen-Times|date=October 31, 2017|language=en}} who married Mary Lee Ryan (1931–2017),{{cite news|last1=Wadington|first1=Katie|last2=DeGrave|first2=Sam|title=Mimi Cecil, community leader and Biltmore owner, dies at 85|url=https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2017/11/18/mimi-cecil-community-leader-and-biltmore-owner-dies-85/877681001/|access-date=24 April 2018|work=Citizen Times|date=November 18, 2017|language=en}} a first cousin of First Lady Jackie Kennedy, as their mothers, Janet Norton Lee and Marion Merritt Lee, were sisters.{{cite web|url=http://www.nps.gov/nhl/designations/samples/nc/Biltmore.pdf|title=NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATION: BILTMORE ESTATE|publisher=nps.gov|access-date=October 31, 2017}}

Around 1932, reportedly finding life at Biltmore too dull, his wife moved to New York City to study art, leaving Cecil to manage Biltmore. A few months later, she moved to Paris where she divorced him in 1934, dyed her hair bright pink, and changed her name to Nilcha.{{cite news |last1=Milling |first1=Marla Hardee |title=Pink-Haired Heiress: The Picaresque Post-Biltmore Life of Cornelia Vanderbilt |url=https://blueridgecountry.com/newsstand/magazine/the-strange-post-biltmore-life-of-cornelia-vanderbilt/ |access-date=11 September 2019 |work=Blue Ridge Country |date=26 June 2017 |language=en-us}}{{cite news|last1=Ward|first1=Vicky|title=Biltmore House, America's Original McMansion|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/books/review/last-castle-denise-kiernan.html|access-date=24 April 2018|work=The New York Times|date=11 October 2017}} After her 1934 move abroad, she never returned to Biltmore or the United States again.{{cite book|last1=Kiernan|first1=Denise|title=The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home|date=2017|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=9781476794044|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=64M2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA289|access-date=24 April 2018|language=en}} After Paris, she moved to London, where she met and married Captain Vivian Francis Bulkeley-Johnson in October 1949.{{cite news|title=Cornelia Vanderbilt Weds London Banker|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/9011771/|access-date=24 April 2018|work=Portland Press Herald|date=October 14, 1949|page=25|language=en}} Bulkeley-Johnson, the aide-de-camp to the 9th Duke of Devonshire when he was the Governor General of Canada from 1916 to 1918, served in the offices of the Imperial War Cabinet in World War I and in the Air Ministry.{{cite web |url=http://www.archivescanada.ca/english/search/ItemDisplay.asp?sessionKey=1143412449030_206_191_57_196&l=0&lvl=2&v=0&coll=0&itm=261814&rt=1&bill=1 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20150309193641/http://www.archivescanada.ca/english/search/ItemDisplay.asp?sessionKey=1143412449030_206_191_57_196&l=0&lvl=2&v=0&coll=0&itm=261814&rt=1&bill=1 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2015-03-09 |title=Vivian Bulkeley-Johnson |access-date=2015-03-09 |publisher=National Archives of Canada }} They remained married until his death in 1968.{{cite book|last1=Milling|first1=Marla Hardee|title=Legends, Secrets and Mysteries of Asheville|date=2017|publisher=Arcadia Publishing|isbn=9781439661093|pages=132–141|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aAgmDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA132|access-date=24 April 2018|language=en}}

After they divorced in 1934, Cecil remained in Biltmore, and he died on 22 October 1954 in Asheville, North Carolina.{{cite news |agency=Associated Press |title=John Cecil, Ex-Aide Of British Embassy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1954/10/23/archives/john-cecil-exaide-of-british-embassy.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=23 October 1954 |access-date=2015-03-09 }}

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Category:People educated at Eton College

Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford

Category:1890 births

Category:Diplomats from London

Category:1954 deaths

John Francis Amherst

Category:Younger sons of barons

Category:British expatriates in the United States