The Duchess of Windsor – “Windsor Gems Stolen”

In October 1946, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor made a private visit to the United Kingdom. However, they were not invited by the royal family and thus stayed with the Earl and Countess of Dudley at their home, Ednam Lodge, not far from Windsor Castle.

The New York Times reported, “The Duke and Duchess of Windsor are expected to arrive tomorrow from France on an extended visit to England. This will be the first visit that the Duchess had paid here since, as King Edward VIII, the Duke abdicated in December, 1936.”¹

Wallis had brought her jewellery box – the size of an overnight suitcase – which was normally placed under her maid’s bed at night. This time it was placed under her own bed, and on 16 October, the Duke and Duchess went to London for the evening. Sometimes between 6 and 7 p.m., thieves managed to find their way into the house through the open window of Dudley’s daughter’s bedroom. They found the jewellery box and took the entire thing without making a noise. When the maid went into the Duchess’s bedroom shortly after 7 p.m., she noticed that it was missing and the police were called.

The Duke and Duchess quickly returned to London as several police officers went to work. A caddie from a nearby house found several earrings scattered around the green, and Ednam Lodge staff members also found an abandoned Fabergé box on a windowsill. Wallis insisted that all of the staff was to be interviewed, much to the horror of Lady Dudley. She later wrote, “She wanted all the servants put through a kind of third degree, but I would have none of this, all of them except for one kitchen maid being old and devoted staff of long-standing.”²

The New York Times wrote, “In one of Britain’s most audacious robberies, thieves escaped with jewels belonging to the Duchess of Windsor after having broken into the holiday home of the Duke and Duchess last night. The jewels were worth $100,000.[…]Scotland Yard detectives declared today that the robbery was the work of an expert. They had been called in by the local police at the request of the Duke.”¹

It was one of the few times Wallis lost her composure. A persistent reporter questioned her on the type of jewellery that had gone missing, and she finally snapped, “A fool would know that with tweeds or other daytime clothes one wears gold and that with evening clothes one wears platinum.”³ Luckily, the jewels that were stolen were only a small part of Wallis’s collection.

There were some rumours that the theft had been set up as part of a fraud. A year after the theft, the Windsors made a large deposit of loose stones at Cartier, though this could, of course, be completely unrelated. Most of the jewels were never recovered, and in 1960 Richard “Tiptoe” Dunphie confessed in court to stealing the Duchess’s jewels. He told them that jewels were initially kept on a boat near Kings Lynn when the search was still ongoing, and the gems were eventually taken out of their settings and sold off.⁴

*aff-link*

Our book The Duchess of Windsor – A Collection of Articles is available now in the US and the UK.

1. New York Times
2. The Duchess of Windsor by Greg King p.389
3. The Duchess of Windsor by Greg King p.390
4. The Windsor Style by Suzy Menkes p. 192-193