Jewellery of Lady Wardington, of Wardington Manor near Banbury, goes under the hammer for over £120,000

The collection fetched a total of £121,240 in an auction of Jewellery, Watches, Silver and Objects of Vertu at Noonans, Mayfair last week. The 30 pieces were being sold by her direct descendants.

Lady Wardington, who was much loved and respected for her tireless charity work, died in November 2014.

The highest price of the collection was paid for a stylish mid-20th century gold and diamond-set evening purse in bi-colour ossierwork which fetched a hammer price of £28,000 against an estimate of £15,000-20,000, while a second similar gold evening purse fetched a hammer price of £22,000 against an estimate of £10,000-15,000.

One of the most striking pieces in the collection was a gem-set cluster brooch/pendant. The pear-shaped cluster was set with various gemstones including cushion and hexagonal-cut blue and yellow Sri Lankan sapphires and further emeralds, aquamarines and rubies, with old brilliant-cut diamond highlights between.

Estimated to fetch £4,000-6,000, it realised a hammer price of £15,000 and was purchased by a London buyer. A striking diamond and platinum bracelet, dating from circa 1950, also fetched a hammer price of £15,000.

As Frances Noble, Head of Jewellery Department at Noonans added: “It has been our privilege to offer for sale the collection of Lady Wardington and we were delighted to have achieved such strong results for her family.”

Margaret Audrey White was born in Bradford in 1927, the only child of a travelling salesman. She was brought up in north London by her mother. On leaving school at 16 she was employed at the Elizabeth Arden cosmetics salon on Bond Street and it was here that she was spotted by Phyllis Digby Morton, editor of Woman and Beauty magazine, who invited her to become a model, launching her high-profile modelling career.

In 1951 she applied to the BBC for a role as a stand-in television announcer but was turned down because she was ‘too beautiful for the BBC’ and in case she ‘alarmed timid men from Wigan and country districts’.

In 1951 and 1952, White was the face of an advertising campaign for the washing powder Dreft and appeared endorsing the product across newspapers and magazines. Advertising in Picture Post described her as a ‘fashion model and TV girl’ and quoted White as saying ‘I always find time to give my nylons and undies that all-important nightly dip in Dreft’.

After dazzling the BBC, but failing to win its executives over, the following year she became fashion editor of Housewife magazine. After a failed marriage, Margaret met and married Christopher Henry Beaumont ‘Bic’ Pease, 2nd Lord Wardington, a partner at stockbrokers Hoare Govett and a noted bibliophile.

Their family home was Wardington Manor where they raised three children. As Lady Wardington, she was to champion practical measures to help women gain financial independence. She devoted herself to charitable causes from Meals on Wheels to local campaigns. She wrote Superhints books for charity from suggestions she canvassed from her many, often upper-class, friends.