ROGER Warner, a highly-respected figure in antiques and fine art, contributed to the collection at Temple Newsam House, Leeds, where a textile collection is displayed under his name.
He also contributed to collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, George Fox's home at Swarthmoor Hall in Cumbria and Snowshill Manor in Gloucestershire, now the National Trus
t's most visited country house.
Warner's private customers included Queen Mary, Princess Margaret, Walt Disney, Mrs Graham Greene, Bruce Chatwin, Christopher Fry and Peter Ustinov.
His particular interest in dolls, dolls houses and period costume brought him to the attention of Lord Redesdale's daughters, the six Mitford sisters of whom Deborah, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, was the youngest and is the last survivor.
Diana Mitford, who married Sir Oswald Mosley, the British Fascist leader, spent the war years in Holloway Prison, Unity was infamous for her friendship with, and adulation of Hitler, and Jessica was a member of the American Communist Party.
The sisters embarrassed the young unmarried Warner by trying on frocks in the middle of his shop's showroom, and in 1938 they brought a dress for Unity to cheer her up after she got a black eye at a Fascist rally in Hyde Park.
Roger Warner, who has died aged 95, was a Quaker and renown for the ethical standards he practised in business.
Among his occasional services was to buy antique treasures from impoverished aristocrats, leaving them in situ until after the client had thrown a party on the proceeds.
His enthusiasm for antiques brought him to the attention of Arthur Negus and an invitation to appear as a visiting expert in the TV antiques show Going for a Song.
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