Lydia Ellen Tritton

Lydia "Nellé" Tritton was born in Brisbane, Australia on 19 September 1899 and died on 10 April 1946.[3]

As a young woman in her mid twenties, Tritton sailed to London and toured Europe, gaining a reputation for knowledge of international affairs, which brought her into contact with Russian expatriates living in Paris.[2] In 1928 she married a former officer of the White Russian Army, Nicholas Alexander Nadejine, 43, in Kensington registry office. Nadejine, a professional singer, was unsuccessful in joining the Covent Garden Opera Company and reportedly had affairs with various rich Englishwomen.[2] The couple divorced in 1936. In 1939, Tritton married another Russian, Alexander Kerensky, who had led the first phase of the Russian Revolution in 1917[4][5] and lived in exile in Pennsylvania, US. Following their wedding, the Kerenskys lived in Paris briefly before moving to New York. In February 1946, while visiting her parents in Brisbane, Australia, Nell suffered a stroke and died of chronic nephritis on 10 April.

The story of her life was turned into a play Motherland, in 2016 by playwright Katherine Lyall-Watson.[6]

• Kesteven, Sophie; Whitfeld, Anna (22 July 2020). "The extraordinary life of Nell Tritton, an Australian heiress who saved her husband from assassins". Late Night Live. ABC Radio National. Retrieved 22 July 2020.