Her Grace the Dowager Duchess Lady Bailey taking tea with @daniellismore & @tyneoconnell in Mayfair. She remains the consummate #eccentric accepting the vicissitudes of changing fortunes, gender & mortality with supreme grace. In 1800 she was celebrated for her work alongside #charlesdarwin & despite dying of natural causes she refused to give up & carried on, featuring in #PrinceAlbert's Great Exhibition at Chrystal Palace in 1851 as part of Darwins #originofthespecies exhibit. After Darwin died he bequeathed The Duke (as she then was) to the @britishmuseum where she exuded the élan & splendour of a true eccentric. When some Oxford hearties knocked her genitals off in rough play she maintained her equanimity, embracing the gender she had always longed to be, crossing gender boundaries as easily as had crossed the boundaries of Species & Mortality over the past 100 years. When the British Museum caste The Duchess out in 1993 due to "balding" she came to live with me in #Mayfair where she became a cause celebre appearing in @theststyle Sunday Style Magazine in a feature of my family house 1996. Lady Bailey is proof that #pluscechangepluscememechose She remains an example to all that gender species & mortality should never get in the way of the champagne & tiara lifestyle of the true eccentric! Lady Bailey I salute you for your composure beauty & elan! #eccentricssociety (at Mayfair)