Colefax was born at
Wimbledon. Her father was William Stirling Halsey, of the Indian Civil Service, and her mother was Sophie Victoria, daughter of the businessman and politician
James Wilson. Her mother's sister, Emily, married the eminent
constitutionalist Walter Bagehot. She lived in
Cawnpore, India, until the age of 20 when she went on the
Grand Tour. In 1901, she married patent lawyer
Arthur Colefax, who was briefly the MP for
Manchester South West in 1910. They set up home at
Argyll House,
King's Road,
Chelsea and at Old Buckhurst in
Sussex. Widely admired for her taste, after she had lost most of her fortune in the
Wall Street crash she began to decorate professionally, using her formidable address book for contacts. She was able to purchase the decorating division of the antique dealers Stair and Andrew of
Bruton Street,
Mayfair and established Sibyl Colefax Ltd in partnership with Peggy Ward, the Countess Munster. On her retirement, following a family tragedy, Ward advised her to take on
John Fowler as her partner, which she did in April 1938. The advent of war cut short this partnership. During the
Second World War, she organised a
soup kitchen and continued to entertain. She often held small lunch parties at
The Dorchester known as 'Ordinaries' after which the guest would receive a small bill. She had an affair with
Virginia Woolf, and corresponded with Woolf's husband upon Woolf's death in 1941. In 1944, the business, managed by John Fowler, took a lease on 39
Brook Street, Mayfair where it remained until December 2016. Also in 1944 Sibyl Colefax sold the business to
Tree for around £1,0000. She renamed the business Sibyl Colefax and John Fowler Ltd, the name continuing today as the decorating division of the
Colefax Group Plc. Colefax died at her home in
Lord North Street, Westminster on 22 September 1950.
Harold Nicolson penned an affectionate tribute that appeared in
The Listener. She was the inspiration, according to the art historian John Richardson, for the designer Mrs Beaver in
Evelyn Waugh's
A Handful of Dust, and for Mrs Aldwinkle in
Aldous Huxley's
Those Barren Leaves. In the 1940s she was referred to frequently by the diarist and socialite politician
Henry "Chips" Channon, who described her as "charming, gentle and sad". ==See also==