#Harriet Ponsonby

[j-august]

Amanda Foreman, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

[amphibious-thing]

They managed to keep Georgiana's secret safe for as long as the pregnancy did not show. However, by October she was into her sixth month and large. Harriet's health was improving, but she still needed to convalesce in a warmer climate and this seemed Georgiana's only hope of escape. Dr. Warren had agreed to Harriet's request to recommend Cornwall rather than Lisbon; it was as far as they could go without making the Duke concerned about Georgiana's absence. But before they could put their plan into action the Duke arrived on an unannounced visit: someone in London had told him he ought to see his wife immediately. He confronted Georgiana alone; the sound of shouting and crying terrified Harriet, who lay on a couch in the adjoining room. At one point he called in Bess and berated her for covering up for Georgiana. "I never felt so frightened about her as now," wrote Harriet to Lady Melbourne. "Wherever she goes I will go with her. If it should be decided for the parting I will beg [Dr.] Warren to send me abroad-that will be a pretence for her going."

Amanda Foreman, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire p253-354

Georgiana had become pregnant with her lover Charles Grey’s baby.

[silverfoxstole]

Henrietta Ponsonby (nee Spencer), Viscountess Duncannon, later Countess of Bessborough, with her sons by John Hoppner, 1787. Known to her family as Harriet, she was the sister of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

I saw this portrait at Standsted House last week but couldn’t find a decent image online. This one is scanned from Georgiana’s World by Amanda Foreman.

[all-hail-the-witcher]

tonight i learned that in victorian england people viewed female marriage (as in, two women having a relationship modeled after heterosexual marriage) as not legal per se, but a variation of legal marriage and therefore perfectly acceptable. many women in victorian england lived with their female parter openly (ie. Elenor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, Harriet Hosmer and Lady Louisa Ashburn, Charlotte Cushman and her many female lovers, etc.) 

[adricthemindnimon]

I’ve been reading a lot about Anne Lister lately, and she does seem to have been a pretty awful person, unfortunately (good luck to the TV show keeping her a likeable character without blatantly ignoring 90% of what she did and how she treated even Ann!). However, I am still delighted to have discovered her. Because reading about her means reading about Eliza Raine, Maria Alexander, Isabella Norcliffe, Mariana Lawton, Eleanor Butler, Sarah Ponsonby, Nantz Belcombe, Harriet Milne, Maria Barlow, Vere Hobart, and Ann Walker, amongst others. So many 19th century women who pursued relationships with other women. Whether, if they lived today, they’d call themselves lesbians, or queer, or bi, or whatever, it doesn’t matter. The fact remains that because of Anne Lister’s diaries, we have a rich documentation of romantic & sexual love between women in the Victorian era. That is an amazing volume of history for modern queer women to have access to.

[iredreamer]

we focus a lot on anne lister and ann walker but isabella/tib shows that there are other more masculine leaning women or butches out there at that time, right? do you know exactly how many queer women are mentioned in anne's writings (as in her lovers and lovers of her lovers, possibly)? or just any more information about other lesbians/queer women at that time?

I don’t know exactly how many queer women she mentions (there are a lot tho, she had 11 lovers and then there are women she kissed or that she flirted with and I guess they were not straight). Some names mentioned in the companion book: Elize Raine, Mariana Lawton, Vera Hobart, Harriet Milne, Anne Belcombe, Maria Barlow, Mary Vallance, Sibella Maclean.

Isabella Norcliffe and Miss Pickford probably had a similar sexual identity to her own, she described them as “regular oddities” and, like Anne, they expressed a disinclination to marry and were not “conventionally feminine”.

Then, there are the Ladies of Llangollen, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, probably the most famous “romantic friendship” example of the 19th century (Anne describes Miss Ponsonby as “odd” and “singular”). Anne hears about them, and then meets them and she’s really fascinated by them and their lifestyle. They had fled Ireland to escape the possibility of being forced into unwanted marriages and they lived together for 50 years. I’m pretty sure there are books about them.

[queerwelsh]

The Relationship of Frances Power Cobbe and Mary Charlotte Lloyd

Mary Charlotte Lloyd [1819-1896] and Frances Power Cobbe [1822-1904] met in Rome, where Mary was a sculptor and, from the 1860s, were life partners until Mary’s death.

Mary was born on the 23rd of January, 1819 in Llanbedr-Dyffryn-Clwyd, Denbighshire, to Edward Lloyd and wife Frances Maddocks, an old family in North Wales, who owned over 4000 acres of land. Little is known of Mary’s childhood, or indeed much of her life outside of her life with Frances, but she may have lived with the ‘maiden’ aunt, Margaret Lloyd, from whom she inherited gifts from ‘Lady Eleanor Ponsonby and Miss Ponsonby,’ The Ladies of Llangollen, and letters to her aunt from the poet Felicia Hemans.

By her 30s, Mary was sculpting in the studio of John Gibson, a sculptor also from North Wales who Norena Shopland writes possibly had a relationship with Welsh artist Penry Williams. Harriet Hosmer studied with Gibson also and she and Mary became friends - Mary had also studied with Rosa Bonheur in France.

Mary met Frances Power Cobbe in the winter of 1861 in Rome, when they were 39 and 43 years old, respectively. Sally Mitchell writes that they were both ‘mature, single women’ who ‘had private income, lived alone, and were fond of animals’, who were both establishing a professional identity, but were opposites in personality. Frances was good humoured, witty, a ‘jolly Irishwoman,’ but Mary was much more introverted, and was even written as ‘Pessimist, unsociable, gloomy,’ but still devoted to Frances.

Frances was born on the 4th of December, 1822, in Newbridge House, Ireland, to Charles Cobbe and Frances Conway. She had a similar family background to Mary, born to old English-speaking, Anglican gentry in a Celtic country. She was a writer, social reformer, Suffragette and anti-Vivisection activist. She was associated with Charles Darwin, among other intellects of the time, and travelled to Rome to socialise with like-minded Suffragette and other lesbian women, such as Charlotte Cushman and Mary Somerville.

Frances and Mary’s relationship developed over the next 2 years, with Frances returning to visit Mary in Rome, even when Frances had suffered an injured to her foot that affected her health for the rest of her life. From 1864, however, Mary and Frances both returned to England, living together in South Kensington, London from 1865, which Mary had paid for with her inheritance, though they split the bills between them.

Mary’s pessimistic image may have been due to her desire to return to Wales, where she often returned to visit, such as to help care for her dying brother. Frances wrote her works while in London, though a sculpture by Mary, Horses and Play, was exhibited in 1865 by the Royal Academy of Arts, in the National Gallery. Mary also planned to build a studio in their garden, with Rosa Bonheur visiting her in 1869.

They continued to travel separately, Frances also visiting Ireland, and Mary returning to Rome, such as when John Gibson suffered a stroke which he died from in 1866. Mary also supported Frances in her suffrage endeavours, such as with the NAPSS and in signing petitions, though she was not heavily politically involved. They continued to share an interest in animal activism also - 2 paintings by Mary appeared in an exhibition of women artists in 1868, which were paintings of her nephew’s dogs, Mary was an executive for the Home For Lost Dogs, which became Battersea Dogs Home, which Frances and Mary raised money for by mortgaging their own home.

Of Mary’s travelling, Frances wrote to Mary Somerville in 1869; ‘I thought ere this you would have had my better half with you... Poor old darling, I am comforted by knowing she is happy & enjoying her little fling. Her life can ever have too much of that to make up for the part - but I am very lonely & sad without her.’ Frances also wrote to Mary Somerville of Mary (Lloyd) returning to her like a ‘truant husband.’ In Frances’s own published writing, she wrote of their relationship; ‘Of a friendship like this, I shall not be expected to say more.‘ In the Duties of Woman, Frances writes of marriage and of ‘friendship,’ which certainly seems to mean same-sex partnership in the context, where marriage and partnership are seen as equal.

Mary’s own sense of privacy may have been behind this, but we can also see that despite claims that lesbian relationships and partnerships were perfectly accepted in the 19th century, even celebrated or fashionable, and though Frances was in a way quite open that Mary was her partner, they could still not go into explicit detail on the nature of their relationship. Even with as much writing of Frances’ that survives, including her own autobiography, we don’t know enough about their relationship to know more about Mary herself.

They moved to Wales in 1884, where they had often visited together over the years, staying in a rented cottage, and where Mary had continued to long for. The continued to rent a cottage at first in Wales, before they could afford to live in the house Mary had partially inherited in Hengwrt, which was helped by Frances inheriting from a friend in 1892. Frances called themselves ‘The Ladies of Hengwrt,’ after the Ladies of Llangollen, and like the Ladies, they received letters addressed to ‘you and Miss Lloyd.’ Here they flourished, where Frances wrote of as one of the most beautiful parts of the kingdom.

Mary passed away in 1896, from heart disease, and was buried in Llanelltyd churchyard, where Frances could see from her windows and visited early every morning. Frances and Mary’s partnership had been ‘thirty-four years of a friendship as nearly perfect as any earthly love may be - a friendship in which there never was a doubt or break - or even a rough word - and which grew more tender as the evening closed.’

Frances died on the 5th of April, 1904, in Hengwrt, and both are buried at Saint Illtud Churchyard, Llanelltyd. 

Sources: Sally Mitchell, Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer. Norena Shopland, Forbidden Lives: LGBT Stories from Wales. Frances Power Cobbe’s and Mary Charlotte Lloyd’s graves. Living Histories Cymru. The photo of Mary Charlotte Lloyd was published by Frances in the Abolitionist in 1900 and was taken in 1864 or 1865, possibly by her brother John Lloyd.

[misslisterkeepsajournal]

1822 Tuesday 11 June

6 1/2

12

Before breakfast wrote page 3 of my letter to Isabella Dalton begun on Saturday - Came upstairs at 10 1/2 wrote the ends and crossed the 1st and 1/2 the 2nd page - on page 2nd is the following “I can only imagine your having one difficulty, the husbandry of time - But here, I am convinced, lies the secret of all the good and all the happiness of life - On the judicious mixture of “ease and alternate labour” hangs, as it were, the key of our spirits, and it will open them to joy or sorrow, to gloom or gaiety in proportion as our time is well employed - Where our avocations are regularly set apart and regularly pursued, hours days and weeks flit lightly by, and our minds, kept in healthful exercise, acquire food and vigour from their own improvement that form at once the charm and usefulness of life - We learn to live to ourselves and others, and, in rowsing ourselves from that Zoophytish State called indolence, we become a higher and happier species of being” - Told her to tell Isabella Norcliffe I had just bought a beautiful 2-year-old thorough-bred, bay colt etc etc “I shall not mention the price unless he turns out well, as I believe it is more the cost of any horse Isabella ever had in her life, and, if the thing does not answer, I shall be rather ashamed of it” - mentioned also my aunt and I taking a fortnights tour in Wales, and wished they knew any one acquainted with Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Ponsonby - said we could not be off before the 10th of next month and, if my father went to France the middle of August, we my aunt and I must be at home by the beginning of that month - my letter is in fact, also, an answer not only to Bell’s received the 3rd March last, but to Marianne’s received 7 June. Sent off my letter to Miss Isabella Dalton (Croft Rectory Darlington) a little before 12 by George who was going to drive my aunt to Halifax -

Letter this morning from M- (Lawton) She “has not for ages past suffered so much from bile as during the last week...was really unequal to any even the smallest exertion...done no earthly thing but lie on the sopha turning over the leaves of the memoirs of the duke de Ripperda” - nothing can be done, I cannot get Charles to talk seriously at all and I believe the only thing is to let the matter rest and trust to chance for what good or evil may betide that Charles cannot now spare ninety pounds or even sixty I am well assured......I believe he has never exceeded the income five pounds, she still wishes to join the Petergate insurance for a hundred and fifty pounds on the death of her father or mother and wishes for further particulars of my plan of my insuring for her. I shall therefore explain but as Charles can do nothing I shall advise her purchasing thirty per annum worth of life annuity on Charles and she may join the Petergate party - M- says Northwich is only 18 miles from Lawton and she will ride over and meet us there - Very civil and kind message from Harriet Belcombe wishing my aunt and me to take Newcastle in our way going or returning and spending a few days with them - M- says of the horse, “if I were you, I should turn them all out to grass every evening bringing them up early in the morning by which means they will have time to empty themselves before you use them, and it will keep them cool, and get them into good condition for your journey” -

Had written the above of today by 12 1/2 - From 12 1/2 to 5, read from page 207 to 362 end of Bakewell’s Geology - from page 162 to 199 Mawe’s mineralogy of Derbyshire, and read also the 1st 90 pages of Greenough’s Geology - Dined at 5 1/2 and my uncle and aunt had tea then that my uncle might go afterwards to Crownest to see Mr Walker about the Hipperholme school trust business - He set off at 6 3/4 George drove him for the first time - they got back at 9 20/60 - At 7 1/4 my aunt walked with me to the top of the Old Bank I then went down it, and up Horton Street by Ward’s end to Wellhead - Mrs Waterhouse dining at Mr Jeremiah Rawson’s. Sat 8 minutes with Mr Waterhouse called at the Saltmarshes’ - Emma, too, dining at her brother Jeremiah’s - got home at 8 1/2, then went into the stable - sauntered to see Hotspur, walked 20 minutes on the terrace and came in at 9 1/4 - Very fine day Barometer 4 degrees above changeable Farenheit 63* at 9 1/4 p.m. Came upstairs at 11 10/60 -

Mr Walker dissatisfied that my uncle had yesterday crossed out the name of Mr Henry Carter as a new trustee and inserted Mr Waterhouse - my uncle therefore called at Hipperholme as he returned dashed out Mr Waterhouse and again wrote Mr Henry Carter I said at once I would not have done so thus altering in private what had been done at a meeting of himself and Mr Walker of Walterclough and making him appear as it were a child in the business Mr Walker was awkward enough about letting the farm, and my uncle says they manage the thing their own way - he will have no more trouble about it [regarding her venereal disease] this means little or no red discharge or any other on Monday and a little red again yesterday - Mr Walker of Crownest knows not how to be like a gentleman, my uncle thinks so too, well he may, he ought to have been more decided with him -

Reference: SH:7/ML/E/6/0015 - SH:7/ML/E/6/0016

[sally-annesstories]

Day 113 - Medellin, Colombia

Let's learn about Medellin!

1. My sleep was a bit disturbed last night with people who got kicked out of the bar relocating to outside my room but nan it's nice getting a room to yourself! Such a conveniance in waking up and turning the lights on when I want and making the noise levels I want. I had a wee sleep in them and then had a quick breakfast of toast before heading out the door. I've finally figured out how to use maps.me and I can't beleive I've gone so long without it. Offline google naps is ok but this is so much better. The streets of Pablado were pretty quiet but on my walk I found the nearest supermarket and a few places to eat that could be nice. Then I made it to the metro and found my man in a red top and hat as promised for the start of the tour. Purchasing a metro ticket I joined the group.

2. The tour started at the metro to get us a few blocks away. This was a great way too quickly see how good the metro system here is! The free walking tour is really renowned and covers the inner city of Medellin. Areas we went through included;

- square of lights

- palacio naional

- Veracruz church

- Boterro square

- Berrio park

- San Antonio park

I learn so much over the 3.5 hours and it's one of the two walking tours I've ever done (up there with Berlin and Edinburgh!). Some things that I've kept with me now from the tour;

- Pablo Escobar was pretty horrific in terms of actions and while Hollywood has depicted this they sometimes have put him in q.more glamorous light. E.g. on Narcos it shows he built hospitals. In reality he built circa 200 houses and one football field. Yes these were given to the poor but he also killed and really how many lives is one house worth. The things he did that were good were all for the wrong reasons.

- in the early 80s a reporter crossed Pablo so the reporter was killed (shot 15 times). The entire family had to flee the country to avoid being killed too

- it is also said Pablo was a pedofile. And per the tour guide everyone knew, but it was never tried. There were 40 or 50 girls killed because of this.

- Outside Veracruz church there were many prostitutes. It is informally known as loving providers church and hotels across the road charge by the hour. Afterwards people repent their sins by going to church.

- the tour guide also provided us with insight into his own life to help us understand him. He said he was from the upper class of Colombia. Originally he grew up in the Pablado neighborhood (where I'm staying) which is relatively fancy. He is from a family of doctors and engineers hence the historic wealth. Because of this in 1990 two of his uncles were kidnapped and held for a ransom of $400k USD which the family paid. After this they lost a lot of money and moved to a middle class neighborhood. He obviously still grew up with all the knowledge around him but their means changed at this time. While middle class neighborhoods were typically free from violence, as the gangs fought for territories they entered these too. In 1999 he was outside playing football with his friends when there was a random shooting by the gangs. He was shot twice in the leg. Two of his best mates killed. Up until this (and because he was too young to be aware of his uncles kidnapping at the time) he said he had been sheltered from the danger due to his families financial circumstances and locality. After this event he had depression for a couple of years (he was an early teen at the time of the shooting). His family sent him to the USA for 6 months. He didnt want to come back. He then stayed there as an illegal immigrant. Also prior to his uncles being kidnapped, his brother had been shot in 1989 so had also eventually gone to the USA. They had both applied for political assylum. His brothers mother had been deported in 1995 and his brother was declined asylum as well. Eventually they were both found and arrested but opted for voluntary deportation. He has been back in Colombia for many years now and is happy there. Wouldn't want to live in USA again. Now runs these tours and is working on opening a language school with his brother (he is both a trained teach plus in media previously working in this).

- the final stop on the tour was SAN Antonio park. We were told not was very dangerous in this is area and to hold our stuff tight. The square used to be busier and home to concerts however sadly in xxxx there was a concert and someone put a bomb in the xxxx bird statue. It killed 7 people including a young child. Noone knows who put the bomb there truly because everyone claimed they did it. These days the damaged bird statue sits there as does a new one side by side. After it happened the mayor at the time wanted to remove the damaged bird. However xxxx himself called and said to keep the original there and he would donate a new one as well. He said it was important to not forget the past. The names of the people who lost their lives that day are also engraved in a plaque. The tour guide commended this as he said Colombians can have short memories for the past as there were many places we walked through on the tour where some horrendous things happened but you wouldn't know now because there is nothing in greivance.

Overall it was a super interesting tour with even more takeaways than I've copied down here.

3. After the tour I caught the metro back to the hostel to figure my plan for the afternoon. After walking so much though it was nice to sit and chill and just be for a moment. It was cool catching the metro on my own as it makes you so independant. The metro is actually something Medellin saw as a huge positive change as it meant the comunas are connected whereby back in Pablo's day they weren't.

4. After my chill time I was back on the metro where I'd come from to go to the botanic gardens. It is book week or month in Colombia and the gardens were overrun with bookstalls everywhere and locals. Plus lots of school age students clearly on excusions. Always fun to see day to day life. After my wander I hopped back on the metro to the Ponsonby Central of Medellin, Mercado del Rio. Here I had Indian curry for dinner (Sarah's influence given she is in India). Then a casual 45 minute walk home to make plans for the night.

5. The Irish girls were also in Medellin although staying at a different hostel. I ended up meeting at their hostel for a few drinks before heading out for Medellin night life. At the hostel I met two English girls (Ruth and Harriet) who when they finish South America are travelling NZ (and have same flight to NZ as me, so random!). We ended up heading to the park area which is where a lot of the bars are. Given it was a Wednesday it was relatively quiet but 8 of us in tow was good. A highlight was a bar with a ball pit we could jump into (so fun, hopefully it was clean!)

[j-august]

Antonia Fraser, Lady Caroline Lamb

[ecec333]

The most promiscuous monarch of modern times was Edward VII, the son of Queen Victoria, famous for being the longest-serving Prince of Wales owing to his mother’s longevity. His first sexual experience was with an Irish actress named Nellie Clifton, who was smuggled into his bed when he was on duty with the army at the Curragh. Edward had many mistresses, but in 1870 there was a huge scandal caused by The Mordaunt Case, when, in 1870, Sir Charles Mordaunt bought a divorce against his wife, and the Prince of Wales was subpoena’d. She confessed to having ‘done wrong’ with the Prince, and the man of letters, Sir Henry Ponsonby, commented, “London was black with the smoke of burnt confidential letters.” Other mistresses included Frances Daisy Brooke (later Lady Warwick), Mrs Langtry and Mrs Keppel who was his mistress for the last twenty years of his life. His taking up with Mrs Keppel was met with almost universal satisfaction. He was, according to Lady Sutherland, “a much pleasanter man since he changed mistresses.” By the time he took up with Mrs Keppel, the Queen had nicknamed him ‘tum tum” because he was so fat. It has been said that Mrs Keppel was invited to be in the room with his Queen Alexandra when Edward died, where the Queen said to her, “I am sure you always had a good influence over him.” The photo is of Lady Harriet Mordaunt.

[steliosagapitos]

Hon Henrietta Molesworth 1745 - 1813  (~ 67 years)

Name: Henrietta Molesworth  [1, 2, 3, 4];  Title: Hon;  Born: Jul 1745 Dublin, Ireland;  Gender: Female;  Died: 1813;    Father: Richard Molesworth, b. Abt 1680, d. 1758  (Age ~ 78 years);  Relationship: natural;  Mother: Mary Jenny Ussher, d. 06 May 1763, London, England;  Relationship: natural;  Family: John Staples, b. 01 Mar 1736, Lissan, Tyrone, Northern Ireland, d. 22 Dec 1820, Tyrone, Northern Ireland  (Age 84 years);  Married: 14 Oct 1774 Dublin, Ireland;  Children: 1. Richard Staples, b. Abt 1785, Glenarm, Antrim, Northern Ireland, d. 1819  (Age ~ 34 years)  [natural].

Miniature portrait of Henrietta Molesworth by Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1780s)

Henrietta, Louisa and Elizabeth Molesworth

There appears to have been some confusion concerning the portraits of the three Molesworth sisters in the Springhill collection, County Londonderry.

This portrait is catalogued as being of the Hon Louisa Molesworth, Lady Ponsonby, later Countess Fitzwilliam who was born in 1749 and died in 1824. However it is now thought to most probably be a portrait of her elder sister Henrietta, later the Hon Mrs John Staples, who was born in 1745.

And this one called Louisa Staples, Lady Pakenham is now believed to be that of Elizabeth Molesworth born in 1751, the wife of James Stewart, Henrietta and Louisa’s younger sister.

A third portrait in pastel and graphite, supposedly of Louisa, has confusing inscriptions written on the back in two different hands, causing some doubt as to the sitter.

In recent years the identity of these three women has become confused, which is somewhat surprising as during their lifetime they were remembered as the survivors of a terrible family tragedy.

Henrietta, Louisa and Elizabeth Molesworth were the daughters of Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth and his second wife Mary Jenney Ussher. Richard Molesworth was an Anglo Irish nobleman and politician who held extensive lands in Limerick. He had enjoyed an illustrious military career, serving alongside the Duke of Marlborough at the Battle of Blenheim in August 1704 and was the Duke’s aide de camp during the War of the Spanish Succession two years later. Made Master General of the Ordnance in Ireland in 1740 Richard later became Commander in Chief of Ireland in 1751.

Richard, 3rd Viscount Molesworth

His wife, Mary Jenney Ussher, more than 45 years his junior, was the daughter of Rev. William Ussher, archdeacon of Clonfert. When the couple married in 1743/4 Mary was little more than 15, her husband 64 years old.

Mary Jenney Ussher

The couple’s first child, a daughter Mary, was born on September 24, 1744 and lived for just one day. The following year another daughter Henrietta, was born, followed by Melesina in 1746, Mary in 1747, a son and heir Richard Nassau Molesworth in 1748 followed by Louisa in 1749, Elizabeth in 1751 and Charlotte born in 1755 who died in 1757 aged 2 years old. The children were all born in Dublin, most probably in the family’s town house, 14 Henrietta Street.

The 3rd Viscount died in 1758 and in 1763 the family was in residence in London at No 49 Upper Brook Street, Hanover Square.

In the first week of May 1763 the house was full with family, servants and visitors, among them Lady Molesworth’s brother Royal Naval Commander Arthur Ussher and Dr Molesworth and his family. Only the young heir, 15 year old Richard, was away from home, studying at Westminster School.

Louisa Molesworth

In the early hours of May 6, 1763 fire broke out. An extract from a letter dated London 7th May 1763 was published in Faulkner’s Dublin Journal and gives a vivid description.

“It is with the utmost horror that I relate to you the dismal catastrophe which befel poor Lady Molesworth and her family yesterday morning about 5 o’clock, when a fire suddenly broke forth in her house by the carelessness of a servant in the nursery, in which she herself, two of her daughters, her brother, who was Capt of a Man of War, the children’s governess and two other maid servants perished. The other three daughters are indeed not consumed, but scarce in a condition preferable, the eldest jumping out of a 2nd floor window was caught upon the iron palisades, which tore her thigh so miserably that the surgeons were obliged to cut it off directly four inches above the knee.”

The report continued:

“The Hon Coote Molesworth and his wife, who, unluckily for them, happened to be her guests, have escaped. He had the presence of mind to throw his bedding out of the back windows, upon which his wife and two children fell, otherwise they must have been dashed to pieces, for the children came from the garret down to the back area, no less than four stories high. Mr Molesworth hung by an iron on the outside of the two pair of stair windows, till a neighbouring carpenter brought him a ladder. – List of saved; Lord Molesworth, fortunately at school; Miss Harriet’s [Henrietta] thigh cut off, and the other leg much torn with spikes; Miss Louisa thigh broke, near hip, but set and hopes of cure without amputation; head cut but not fractured. Mr & Mrs Molesworth, Miss Betty much bruised and scorched. Perished; Lady Molesworth; Miss Melesina; Miss Molly, Capt. Usher; Mrs Moselle, governess to the children; Mrs Patterson, Lady Molesworth’s woman; the young ladies maid, Capt Usher’s man, who got out, but perished by returning to save his master; and two black footman.”

That man of letters, Horace Walpole, wrote of the disaster to the Hon H.S. Conway.

“I must change this tone, to tell you of the most dismal calamity that ever happened. Lady Molesworth’s house, in Upper Brook Street, was burned to the ground between four and five this morning. She herself, two of her daughters, her brother and six servants, perished. Two other of the young ladies jumped out of the two pair of stairs and garret windows: one broke her thigh, the other (the eldest of all) broke her’s too, and has had it cut off. The fifth daughter is much burnt. The French governess leaped from the garret, and was dashed to pieces. Dr Molesworth and his wife, who were there on a visit, escaped; the wife by jumping from the two pair of stairs, and saving herself by a rail; he by hanging by his hands, till a second ladder was brought, after a first had proved too short. Nobody knows how or where the fire began, the catastrophe is shocking beyond what one ever heard; and poor Lady Molesworth, whose character and conduct were the most amiable in the world, is universally lamented. Your good hearts will feel this in the most lively manner.”

News of the tragedy reached the King who provided the surviving sisters with a fully furnished house at his expense. He made them a ‘handsome present’ and continued the pension previously settled on their mother, increasing it by £200 a year.

It is impossible to imagine how these girls coped with the trauma and the horrific injuries they sustained.

Yet all three went on to marry, Louisa twice, the second time when she was 73, and all three raised large families and lived long lives. Henrietta died in 1813 aged 68, Louisa was 74 when she died and Elizabeth was 83 years old when she died in 1835.

Louisa

This is one of the more poignant stories to come from the extended St John family files. The three surviving Molesworth sisters were the great great granddaughters of Nicholas St John and his wife Elizabeth Blount whose monument stands in St Mary’s Church, Lydiard Tregoze. The girls’ descent is traced through the marriage of Nicholas and Elizabeth’s daughter Elizabeth who married Richard St George.

Nicholas St John and his wife Elizabeth Blount

And the girls’ uncle, Major Edward Molesworth, their father’s brother, is the 5 x great grandfather of Sophie, Countess of Wessex, wife of Prince Edward.