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The above lady lived in Keats Grove Hampstead London NW3 and employed my grandmother as a cook. Round about 1924 she paid my grandmother for my then 12 years old mother to pose for a portrait. The portrait hung in the Royal Academy summer exhibition but was not sold. It was then given as a gift to my grandmother and I still have it. I would dearly like to find out more about this lady and whether or not she had Scottish origins. I don't even now if she was a maiden lady or if Burns was her married name. Any advice please on how to start.
Thanks for any advice.

The middle name may be useful:

Margaret Delisle Burns in the London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965

Name: Margaret Delisle Burns
Year: 1932
County or Borough: Camden
Ward or Division/Constituency: Hampstead
Street address: 3 Keats Grove

Also listed is a Cecil Delisle Burns, plus Ethel Stratfull.

Name:Margaret Delisle Burns (living with Cecil)

Year:1926

County or Borough:Camden

Ward or Division/Constituency:Hampstead

Street address:3 Keat's Grove

Looks like their marriage:

Cecil Delish Burns in the London, England, Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921
Name: Cecil Delish Burns [Cecil Delisle Burns]
Estimated birth year: abt 1880
Age: 33
Spouse: Margaret Alice Hannay
Spouse Age: 24
Record Type: Marriage
Event Date: 21 Nov 1913
Parish: Primrose Hill
Borough: Camden
Father Name: James Burns
Spouse Father: Alexander Arnold Hannay
Register Type: Parish Register

ADDED:

Here's the image

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/keepsafe/asset/edit/20490512

The fact that Margaret is listed as an artist tallies with the portrait.

BURNS, Margaret Alice Delisle

1888 - 1974

As Margaret Alice Hannay, she was born in London on 9 July 1888, daughter of Arnold Alexander Hannay and his wife Alice Mary née Howard, who married at Hastings, Sussex in 1883. Margaret was the sister of Alexander Howard Hannay (1889–1955), art critic of the 'London Mercury', who published 'Roger Fry and Other Essays' in 1937. She was a student at the Slade School before the First World War, where she won the prize for
figure drawing in 1910 since when she has worked in France, the United States and Italy, taking as her chief subjects the old buildings of these countries. She married in 1912 the eminent national and international civil servant and academic Cecil Delisle Burns (1879–1942). A landscape and figure painter she has painted under the name of Mrs. Hannay and Margaret Delisle Burns and she has exhibited at the Goupil Gallery, the International and the New English Art Club. Her earlier architectural drawings were done in Dieppe when she first adopted the method of drawing in Indian ink with body-colour on brown. The obituary notice for her husband in 'The Times' of 23 anuary 1942 said that she was ‘a gifted painter and etcher’ they had two sons. She lived in Hampstead and in 1927 they built, at a cost of £1,000, Walberswick House at Walberswick, Suffolk which was destroyed by enemy action in World War Two and her riverside studio was washed away in the 1953 East Coast Floods. She died in the North Surrey district in 1974.


There is lots of info about her and husband Cecil if you google.

EDIT:
Above found at:
http://www.suffolkpainters.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=2985

Dea x

Nice one Dea!

Name: Cecil Delisle Burns (lecturer)

Arrival Date:5 Jan 1912

Birth Date:abt 1880

Birth Location:West Indies

Birth Location Other:bassettere

Age:32

Gender:Male

Ethnicity/ Nationality:English

Port of Departure:Liverpool, England

Port of Arrival:New York, New York

Ship Name:Lusitania

The birth of Margaret's father shows that there is indeed a Scottish connection:

Alexander Arnold Hannay in the Scotland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950
Name: Alexander Arnold Hannay
Gender: Male
Birth Date: 26 Jan 1858
Birth Place: Dundee,Angus,Scotland
Father: Alexander Hannay
Mother: Mary Agnes Hawson
FHL Film Number: 6035516

An example of Margaret's work:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/london-back-gardens-39098

Could this be her husband? Spouse was Margaret Hanny.

C. Delisle Burns
Born (1879-01-26)26 January 1879
Saint Kitts and Nevis, West Indies
Died 4 February 1954(1954-02-04) (aged 85)[dubious – discuss]
Dorking, England
Alma mater Christ's College, Cambridge
Occupation Atheist and secularist writer and lecturer
Spouse(s) Margaret Hanny
Children Two

Cecil Delisle Burns (26 January 1879 - 22 January 1942) was a leading English atheist and secularist writer and lecturer.

Early life[edit]Burns was born in Saint Kitts and Nevis, West Indies[1] where his father was treasurer of St. Christopher-Nevis in the Leeward Islands. After leaving Christ's College, Cambridge, he was trained in Rome for the priesthood, but left the Church in 1908 and devoted time to the study of social problems in a wider sense.

He was appointed as a regular lecturer at South Place Ethical Society, at Conway Hall in London, in 1918 and continued to lecture there until his health deteriorated in September

England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966

Name: Alice Hannay
[Alys Hannay]
Probate Date: 5 Sep 1934
Registry: London, England
Death Date: 31 May 1934
Death Place: Middlesex, England

Alys Mary Hannay of 11 Ranulf Road, Hampstead, Widow, died 31st May 1934...Probate..to William Newman Howard, chartered accountant, Robert Stewart Erskine Hannay retired lieutenant RN and Margaret Delisle Burns (wife of Cecil Delisle Burns)

There's a chapter on Margaret in this on-line book, including several more of her etchings:

http://goo.gl/DPYiS4

What can I say apart from WOW! Thanks ladies & gentleman. I am nearly 77 and have been wondering all my life about it and you have answered in less than as many minutes! Thanks you so much. I shall print this off and fasten it to the back of the painting so that my family will not have to wonder!

Name:James Cecil Patrick Delisle Burns (otherwise Cecil)

Probate Date:2 Jun 1942

Registry:Llandudno

Death Date:22 Jan 1942

Death Place:Surrey, England

Admin with Will to: Margaret Delisle Burns (widow) £3492 4s 4d


Name:Cecil J P D Burns

Birth Date:abt 1880

Date of Registration:Mar 1942

Age at Death:62

Registration district:Surrey South eastern

Inferred County:Surrey

Volume:2a

Page:1240

I see that they had two children so that is my next job - after the shopping. regards Jennifer

One of her Paintings....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/london-back-gardens-39098

Margaret's father was from Scotland

1911

Name:Alexander Arnold Hannay

Age in 1911:53

Estimated birth year:abt 1858

Relation to Head:Head

Gender:Male

Birth Place:DUNDEE, Dundee, Scotland

Civil Parish:Hampstead
County/Island:London

Street address:34 Avenue Road, Hampstead N W

Marital Status:Married

Years Married:24

Estimated Marriage Year:1887

Occupation:SOLICITOR

Registration district:Hampstead

Registration District Number:8

Sub-registration district:Hampstead

ED, institution, or vessel:26
Piece:616

Household Members:


Alexander Arnold Hannay 53
Alice Mary Hannay 45
Katharine Hannay 16
Mary Call 33
Elizabeth Birks 36
Beatrice Chesnaye 21
Emma Adams 27
Albert Edward Elvin 17

----------------------------------------------------


Name:Alexander Arnold Hannay

Gender:Male

Birth Date:26 Jan 1858

Birth Place:Dundee,Angus,Scotland

Father:Alexander Hannay

Mother: Mary Agnes Hawson

FHL Film Number:6035516

possible/probable children

Births Mar 1915 (>99%)
Burns Benedict De L Hannay Marylebone 1a 1060 Scan available - click to view
Births Mar 1920 (>99%)
Burns John D D Hannay Hampstead 1a 1357 Scan available - click to view

Benedict Delisle Burns
retired neurobiologist
Benedict Delisle Burns, British retired neurobiologist. Fellow Royal Society London; member International Brain Research Organization, Physiological Society, Experimental Psychology Society.
Background

Burns, Benedict Delisle was born on February 22, 1915 in London.

Education

Bachelor, Cambridge (England) University, 1936.
Career

Member research staff National Institute Medical Research, 1945-1950. Associate professor physiology McGill University, 1950-1958, professor physiology, 1958-1966. Head division physiology and pharmacology National Institute Medical Research, London, 1966-1976.

Member external staff medical research Bristol (England) University, 1976-1980. Visiting University Newcastle-upon-Tyne, since 1980.

Probate--James Cecil Patrick Delisle Burns - otherwise Cecil Delisle of Edgehill, Deepdene Park Road, Dorking Surrey died 22/01/1942 Administration with will to Margaret Delisle Burns,widow, £3,492. 4s - 4d