Regency Personalities Series-Catherine Hughes, Baroness de Calabrella

Regency Personalities Series

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

Catherine Hughes Baroness de Calabrella
December 1787 -October 6 1856

The daughter of David and Sarah Ball of Bishop’s Hall, Lambourne Essex. Her grandmother Ruth had married Admiral Edward Hughes who had a large fortune. Her brother was thus Golden Ball Hughes but she was left substantial sums as well.

In 1804 she married Rev. Francis Lee who was a chaplain to the Prince of Wales, against, at first, her mother’s wishes. A servant of Lee’s pretended to be her father so that they could marry. They had a son, Edward Hughes Lee but Catherine and Lee became estranged. He went to Spain without her. A second child, a girl was born in 1810 but lee disclaimed it. Catherine then moved in with a lover, Captain George de Blaquiere, a son of the 1st Baron de Blaquiere. Lee sued the captain for criminal conversation.

Lee then killed himself in 1826 and so did Captain Blaquiere that year. She might then have married Thomas Jenkins who was a patron of the Countess of Blessington, but she did use Jenkins name. He died in 1837. She acquired property in Southern Italy and began to use the title Baroness de Calabrella. The property had been her sons who died in 1834.

By the 1840s she had purchased a newspaper named the Court Journal. It was losing money and under her ownership continued to do so. Catherine wrote novels and short stories and published a book on etiquette that went though several American editions.

Works

• The Tempter and the Tempted (1842)
• The Cousins (Ainsworth’s Magazine, 1843),
• The Land of Promise, a Tale (1844)
• The Double Oath; or, The Rendezvous (1850)

• The Court Journal Library (1846)
• Evenings at Haddon Hall (1849)

• The Prism of Thought (1843 collection)
• The Prism of Imagination (1843 collection)
• Blessington’s Book of Beauty (1843, 1847)
• Ainsworth’s Magazine (2 in 1843)
• The Illustrated London News (1844)
• “The Old Man of Haarlem”, Magic and Mesmerism: An Episode of the Eighteenth Century and Other Tales, Volume III (London, Saunders and Otley, 1843)

• The Ladies’ Science of Etiquette (1844)

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