Dorothy Paget

Dorothy Paget

Dorothy Wyndham Paget (21 February 1905 – 9 February 1960) was a British racehorse owner. She was the daughter of Lord Queenborough and Pauline Payne Whitney of the United States Whitney family. She was a cousin of Jock Whitney, owner of the dual Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Easter Hero and latterly American Ambassador in London. She was the granddaughter of William C. Whitney, a wealthy American businessperson and politician who was also a racehorse owner.

Paget is notably responsible for the establishment of an old age home for emigrés Russians as well as the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery in France. Dorothy took profound interest in the fate of the Russian refugees after having attended the school in Paris founded by Princess Vera Meshchersky, one of the Russian Red Cross trustees and daughter of Karl de Struve, Russian Ambassador to, at different times, Japan, the U.S and Holland. Vera's niece, Olga de Mumm was Dorothy's beloved, long-time companion and with her, managed the breeding and training programs of Paget's racing stables. It was Dorothy who purchased the plot for the cemetery, where such notable Russians as Ivan Bunin, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Rudolf Nureyev were later buried. She also saw to it that the residents of the old-age home "were supplied with turkey and plum pudding at Christmas time".