Regency Personalities Series-Frederick Ponsonby 3rd Earl of Bessborough

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.

Frederick Ponsonby 3rd Earl of Bessborough
24 January 1758 – 3 February 1844

Frederick Ponsonby

Frederick Ponsonby 3rd Earl of Bessborough was the eldest son of Viscount Duncannon (who succeeded as The 2nd Earl of Bessborough in July 1758) and Lady Caroline Cavendish, daughter of The 3rd Duke of Devonshire. He succeeded to his father’s titles in 1793. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and obtained the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Civil Law.

He sat in the House of Commons as member for Knaresborough from 1780 until his succession to the peerage and was a Lord of the Admiralty in 1782–83

Bessborough usually made a favourable first impression: quiet, but with “the most mild and amiable manner”. On the other hand, he was a notoriously bad husband, alternating between neglecting Henrietta and insulting her in public. While there were faults on both sides- she was addicted to gambling and had numerous affairs- society in general judged him to be the greater offender.

On 27 November 1780, he had married Lady Henrietta Spencer, second daughter of John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer. The marriage was notoriously unhappy and Bessborough began divorce proceedings in 1790 but under intense pressure from his relatives dropped them. They had four children:

• John Ponsonby, 4th Earl of Bessborough(1781–1847).
• Major General Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby (1783–1837).
• Lady Caroline Lamb(1785–1828). Her husband was the 2nd Viscount Melbourne, the Prime Minister, however, she was never the Viscountess Melbourne because she died before he succeeded to the peerage; hence, she is known to history as Lady Caroline Lamb.
• William Francis Spencer, 1st Baron de Mauley (1787–1855).

Lady Bessborough died in 1821 of a chill caught while travelling abroad. Her husband outlived her by more than 20 years, dying at Canford House, Dorset in 1844.

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Regency Personalities Series-Isaac Nathan

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.

Isaac Nathan
1790 – 15 January 1864

Isaac Nathan

Isaac Nathan was born in 1790 in the English city of Canterbury to a hazzan (Jewish cantor) of Polish birth, Menahem Monash “Polack” (the Pole) and his English Jewish wife, Isaac Nathan was initially destined for his father’s career and went to the school of Solomon Lyon in Cambridge. Showing an enthusiasm for music, he was apprenticed to the London music publisher Domenico Corri. He also claimed to have had five years of voice lessons with Corri, who had studied with Nicola Porpora. In 1813 he conceived the idea of publishing settings of tunes from synagogue usage and persuaded Lord Byron to provide the words for these. The result was the poet’s famous Hebrew Melodies. Nathan’s setting of these remained in print for most of the century.

The Hebrew Melodies used, for the most part, melodies from the synagogue service, though few if any of these were in fact handed down from the ancient service of the Temple in Jerusalem, as Nathan claimed. Many were European folk-tunes that had become absorbed into the synagogue service over the centuries with new texts (contrafacta). However they were the first attempt to set out the traditional music of the synagogue, with which Nathan was well acquainted through his upbringing, before the general public. To assist sales, Nathan recruited the famous Jewish singer John Braham to place his name on the title page, in return for a share of profits, although Braham in fact took no part in the creation of the Melodies.

The success of the Melodies gave Nathan some fame and notoriety. Nathan was later to claim that he had been appointed as singing teacher to the Princess Royal, Princess Charlotte, and music librarian to the Prince Regent, later George IV. There is no evidence for this, although his edition of the Hebrew Melodies was dedicated to the Princess by royal permission.

In 1816, Byron left England, never to return (nor to communicate further with Nathan). In 1817 Nathan’s royal pupil Princess Charlotte died in childbirth. He thus lost his two major patrons.

Nathan undertook a runaway marriage with a music pupil, and another after his first wife’s early death. Both spouses were Christian; however for both, Nathan also undertook and arranged synagogue marriages after the church ceremony. His hot temper probably accounts for a duel he fought over the honour of Lady Caroline Lamb, and his assault on an Irish nobleman who he thought had impugned one of his female pupils. The latter saw Nathan prosecuted, although he was acquitted. Nathan felt a special attachment for Lady Caroline; she was godmother to one of his children and he wrote her an appreciative poem in Hebrew, which he reprints in his Recollections of Lord Byron.

Gambling on prize-fights was one cause of his financial problems. He may have spent at least some months in debtors’ prisons. He wrote frequently for the popular press in London on boxing and music. He wrote comic operas for the London stage, and four of these were produced between 1823 and 1833. His copyright for Hebrew Melodies ought to have brought him income – at one point he sold it to his married sister, presumably to avoid it being lost in bankruptcy – but it became involved in complex legal disputes. He attempted a publishing business in partnership with his brother Barnett Nathan, who later became proprietor of Rosherville Gardens. Nathan published a history of music (1823), dedicated by permission to King George IV, which shows in its treatment of Jewish music a great deal of understanding of the Bible and of Jewish traditions.

Nathan also attracted some renown as a singing teacher. One of his pupils was another great English poet, the very young Robert Browning, who 60 years later recalled: ‘As for singing, the best master of four I have, more or less, practised with was Nathan, Author of the Hebrew Melodies; he retained certain traditional Jewish methods of developing the voice’.

Nathan claimed to have undertaken some mysterious services for the Royal Family, but the Whig government under Lord Melbourne refused payment to him, leading to his financial embarrassment. He emigrated to Australia with his children, arriving in April 1841. There he became a leader of local musical life, acting as music adviser both to the synagogue and to the Roman Catholic cathedral in Sydney. He gave first or early performances in Australia of many of the works of Mozart and Beethoven. On 3 May 1847 his Don John of Austria, the first opera to be written, composed and produced in Australia, was performed at the Victoria Theatre, Sydney. He was the first to research and transcribe indigenous Australian music, and also set lyrics by the poet Eliza Hamilton Dunlop.

The London Jewish Chronicle of 25 March 1864 reported from Sydney:
Mr. Nathan was a passenger by No. 2 tramway car […] [he] alighted from the car at the southern end, but before he got clear of the rails the car moved onwards […] he was thus whirled round by the sudden motion of the carriage and his body was brought under the front wheel.

The horse-drawn tram was the first in Sydney: Nathan was Australia’s (indeed the southern hemisphere’s) first tram fatality.

He was buried in Sydney; his tomb is at Camperdown Cemetery.

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Regency Personalities Series-George Godolphin Osborne 8th Duke of Leeds

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.

George Godolphin Osborne 8th Duke of Leeds
16 July 1802 – 8 August 1872

George Godolphin Osborne 8th Duke of Leeds was born the eldest son of Francis Osborne and his wife, The Hon. Elizabeth Eden. In 1832 his father was created Baron Godolphin, upon which George became known as The Hon. George Osborne. When the 1st Baron Godolphin died in 1850, George succeeded his father and became the 2nd Baron Godolphin. Nine years later, George’s cousin, the 7th Duke of Leeds, died and he also inherited the dukedom of Leeds, thus becoming styled His Grace The Duke of Leeds. The Godolphin barony and the dukedom remained united until the death of the last duke of Leeds in 1964, when both titles became extinct.

In 1824 he married the Lady Harriet Emma Arundel Stewart, an illegitimate daughter of Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville by the Lady Henrietta Frances Spencer, wife of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough. Lady Harriet was thus a maternal half-sister of the Lady Caroline Lamb.

With Harriet Stewart, he had eight children:

• George Godolphin Osborne, 9th Duke of Leeds (11 August 1828 –23 December 1895)
• Reverend Lord Francis George Godolphin Osborne (6 April 1830 –6 March 1907)
• Lady Susan Georgina Godolphin Osborne (6 April 1830 –14 November 1903)
• Major Lord D’Arcy Godolphin Osborne (14 June 1834 –20 March 1895)
• Lord William Godolphin Osborne (28 August 1835 –28 December 1888)
• Lady Emma Charlotte Godolphin Osborne (1837 –24 May 1906)
• Lady Charlotte Godolphin Osborne (1838 –25 March 1914)
• Lady Blanche Godolphin Osborne (1842 –13 February 1917)

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Regency Personalities Series-William George Spencer Cavendish 6th Duke of Devonshire

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.

William George Spencer Cavendish 6th Duke of Devonshire
21 May 1790 – 18 January 1858

William George Spencer Cavendish

William George Spencer Cavendish 6th Duke of Devonshire was born in Paris, France, Devonshire was the son of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, and Lady Georgiana, daughter of John Spencer, 1st Earl Spencer. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. His mother died in 1806 and in 1811, aged 21, he succeeded his father in the dukedom. Along with the title he inherited eight stately homes and 200,000 acres (809 km² or 80,900 ha) of land. He went on to improve his houses and gardens (including the rebuilding of the village of Edensor) and travelled extensively.

Politically Devonshire followed in the Whig family tradition. He supported Catholic emancipation and the abolition of slavery and reduced factory working hours. He held office as Lord Chamberlain of the Household under George Canning and Lord Goderich between 1827 and 1828 and under Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne between 1830 and 1834. In 1827 he was sworn of the Privy Council and made a Knight of the Garter. He was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary to the Russian Empire on the coronation of Czar Nicholas I in 1826.

Devonshire was also Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire between 1811 and 1858 and carried the Orb at the coronation of George IV in 1821. However, increasing deafness from an early age prevented him from taking an even greater part in public life.

Devonshire was a close friend of the Prince Regent. Other friends included Antonio Canova and Charles Dickens. He befriended Sir Joseph Paxton, then employed at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chiswick Gardens, located close to Devonshire’s London estate Chiswick House, and appointed him his head gardener at Chatsworth House in 1826, despite Paxton being only in his early twenties at the time. Paxton greatly expanded the gardens at Chatsworth, including the construction of a 300 foot long conservatory, which served as a model for The Crystal Palace constructed in London’s Hyde Park. Devonshire himself developed a keen interest in horticulture and was elected President of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1838, in which position he served for twenty years until his death. It was this interest which led him to establish the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew as a national botanic garden. He was also patron of The Derby Town and County Museum and Natural History Society, which founded Derby Museum and Art Gallery 1836.

The world’s most commercially exploited banana, the Cavendish, was named in honour of William Cavendish, who acquired an early specimen, which he raised in his glasshouse. This plant is the progenitor of almost all the worldwide varieties of Cavendish banana.

Much of Devonshire’s private correspondence, including letters to his mistresses (one of whom he installed nearby), was destroyed by his Victorian relatives. He intended to marry Lady Caroline Ponsonby, his cousin, but she married William Lamb, which he found devastating.

Devonshire died at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, in January 1858, aged 67. As he was unmarried the dukedom passed to his cousin William Cavendish, 2nd Earl of Burlington. His junior title of Baron Clifford fell into abeyance between his sisters, Georgiana, Countess of Carlisle, and Harriet, Countess Granville.

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Regency Personalities Series-Frederick Lamb 3rd Viscount Melbourne

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.

Frederick Lamb 3rd Viscount Melbourne
17 April 1782 – 29 January 1853

Frederick Lamb

Frederick Lamb 3rd Viscount Melbourne known as the Lord Beauvale from 1839 to 1848, was a British diplomat.

Lamb was a younger son of Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne, and his wife Elizabeth Milbanke, and the younger brother of Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. Since his mother had numerous lovers, his real paternity is a matter of conjecture. He married Alexandrina Julia Theresa Wilhelmina Sophia Gräfin von Maltzan, daughter of Joachim Charles Leslie Mortimer Graf von Maltzan. It was generally considered to be a love marriage: even though Alexandrina was more than thirty years her husband’s junior, he was described as being “as handsome and debonair at sixty as he had been at twenty-five.” William, Frederick and their sister Emily remained close all their lives, although Frederick and Emily disliked William’s wife Lady Caroline Lamb, whom they called “the little beast”.

He served as British Ambassador to Vienna ending in 1841. He was invested as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath and admitted to the Privy Council in 1822. In 1839 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Beauvale, of Beauvale in the County of Nottingham. In 1848 he succeeded his elder brother as third Viscount Melbourne.

Despite a certain personal coolness between them, Lord Palmerston, as Foreign Secretary placed great confidence in Lamb, wrote to him in a courteous style very different from his usual brusque manner, and left the running of the Vienna Embassy almost entirely in his hands. The coolness was due to Palmerston’s decades-long affair with Lamb’s sister Emily, Lady Cowper; Lamb disapproved of the affair and equally of their eventual marriage, although this proved to be very happy.

Palmerston’s biographer notes that the marriage coincided with the early stages of the Oriental Crisis of 1840, and that the two men, although they were then personally barely on speaking terms, cooperated in an entirely professional way to resolve it. Palmerston, in addition to his real respect for Lamb, was anxious not to quarrel with him for Emily’s sake: as Charles Greville remarked: “the Chief (Palmerston) is devoted to the sister and the sister to the brother”. Relations between the two men became friendlier in later years, partly because both Palmerston and Emily were fond of Alexandrina.

Lord Melbourne died childless in January 1853, aged 70, and all his titles became extinct. The family seat of Melbourne Hall passed to his sister Emily. His widow remarried in 1856 to John Weld-Forester, 2nd Baron Forester, was widowed again in 1873, and died in 1894.

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Regency Personalities Series-Sarah Villiers Countess of Jersey

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.

Sarah Villiers Countess of Jersey, Patroness of Almacks
4 March 1785 – 26 January 1867

Sarah Sophia Child Villiers

Sarah Villiers Countess of Jersey was an English noblewoman, the eldest daughter of John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland, and Sarah Anne Child. Her mother was the only child of Robert Child, the principal shareholder in the banking firm Child & Co. Under the terms of his will, the Countess of Jersey was the primary legatee, and she not only inherited Osterley Park but became senior partner of the bank. Her husband, George Villiers, added the surname Child by royal licence.

Lady Jersey married George Child Villiers, 5th Earl of Jersey, on 23 May 1804, in the drawing room of her house in Berkeley Square. Her husband’s mother, Frances Villiers, Countess of Jersey (also Lady Jersey), was one of the more notorious mistresses of King George IV when he was Prince of Wales. Her sister Maria married John Ponsonby, Viscount Duncannon, later the 4th Earl of Bessborough, a brother of Lady Caroline Lamb. Her own affairs, though conducted discreetly, were said to be numerous: Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, was thought to be one of her lovers. When asked why he had never fought a duel to preserve his wife’s reputation, Lord Jersey dryly replied that this would require him to fight every man in London.

Lady Jersey was one of the patronesses of Almack’s and a leader of the ton during the Regency era. She was immortalized as Zenobia in Disraeli’s novel Endymion. Caroline Lamb ridiculed her in Glenarvon: in revenge Lady Jersey had her barred from Almack’s, the ultimate social disgrace. This, however, was unusual since she was notable for acts of kindness and generosity; and she was eventually persuaded to remove the ban.

In politics she was a Tory, although she lacked the passion for politics shown by her cousin Harriet Arbuthnot. On hearing that the Duke of Wellington had fallen from power in 1830, she burst into tears in public. She reportedly “moved heaven and earth” against the Reform Act 1832.

Lady Jersey was known by the nickname Silence; the nickname was ironic since, famously, she almost never stopped talking.

She is a recurring character in the Regency novels of Georgette Heyer, where she is presented as eccentric and unpredictable, but highly intelligent and observant, and capable of kindness and generosity.
She died at No. 38, Berkeley Square, Middlesex now London.

Lady Jersey had seven children by George Child Villiers:

• George Child Villiers, 6th Earl of Jersey (1808–59)
• The Honourable Augustus John Villiers (1810–47), married Georgiana Elphinstone, daughter of George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith.
• The Honourable Frederick William Child Villiers (1815–71), married Elizabeth Maria van Reede, daughter of the 7th or 8th Earl of Athlone.
• The Honourable Francis John Robert Child Villiers (1819–62).
• Lady Sarah Frederica Caroline Child Villiers (1822–1853), married Nicholas Paul (Miklós Pál), 9th Prince Esterházy (1817–94).
• Lady Clementina Augusta Wellington Child Villiers (1824–58).
• Lady Adela Corisande Maria Child Villiers (1828–60), married Lt.-Col. Charles Parke Ibbetson, and had one daughter Adele.

She outlived not only her husband, but six of her seven children.

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Regency Personalities Series-Emily Lamb Lady Cowper (Patroness of Almacks)

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.

Emily Lamb Lady Cowper (Patroness of Almacks)
1787–1869

Emily Lamb

Emily Lamb Lady Cowper (Patroness of Almacks) Emily was born in 1787 to Peniston Lamb and his wife Elizabeth (née Milbanke). Due to her mother’s numerous love affairs, her true paternity was never verified, and has been described as ” shrouded in mystery”. The Lamb family had been politically prominent since the mid-18th century, reaching their zenith of influence in Emily’s generation. Her father was made Viscount Melbourne in 1781. Her eldest brother William Lamb twice held the premiership of England, while another brother, Frederick Lamb, was a noted diplomat, and a third, George Lamb, was a minor playwright and journalist of the era. The Lambs were closely linked with the Whig party, and were intimates of Queen Victoria. There was a lifelong bond between William and Emily, whom he fondly called “that little devil”; by contrast she detested his wife, Lady Caroline Lamb (whom she called “that little beast”).

At age eighteen, Emily married Peter Clavering-Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper, a man nine years her senior. Lord Cowper had a reputation for dullness and slowness of speech which were in marked contrast to his wife’s social gifts; a more favourable portrait was that he was a quiet, pleasant man who was far less stupid than he appeared but avoided society and politics. Emily threw herself into the Regency social scene, becoming one of the leading ladies of the highly exclusive Almack’s club. She was noted for kindness and generosity: she would do anything for a person she liked, and would even help people she disliked: although she detested her sister-in-law Caroline, when Caroline was barred from Almack’s, a deep social disgrace, Emily eventually managed to get the ban lifted. Like many of the society ladies of the age, she had love affairs, including one with the Corsican diplomat Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, later Russian Ambassador to Great Britain.

Emily was noted not only for beauty but for her extraordinary charm: she was “grace put in action, whose softness was as seductive as her joyousness”.

At Almack’s, Lady Cowper was increasingly seen in the company of Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, who was known as “Cupid” at the time for his various romantic dalliances, including affairs with Emily’s fellow patronesses of Almack’s, Dorothea Lieven and Sarah Villiers, Countess of Jersey. Palmerston was a regular fixture of her parties and salons, and as Lord Cowper sank into a long period of ill health and general decline, Lady Cowper and Lord Palmerston entered into a romantic relationship. This brought Palmerston, originally a Tory, increasingly in contact with notable Whigs, particularly Emily’s brother. Of an 1826 proposal for Catholic Emancipation, Palmerston said, “the Whigs supported me most handsomely, and were indeed my chief and most active friends.” Soon after, Palmerston switched affiliations and ran as a Whig candidate. Emily’s mother on her deathbed in, urged her to remain constant to Palmerston, possibly looking forward to a future time when they would be free to marry.

In 1837, Lord Cowper died, two days into the reign of Queen Victoria. This left the way open for a marriage between Emily and Palmerston, though their age was a cause for concern, as, in the eyes of her family, was Palmerston’s reputation as a womaniser. The matter was referred to Queen Victoria, whose approval cleared the way for the marriage on 16 December 1839. Palmerston was 55 at the time, and Lady Cowper was 52.

They set up their home at Broadlands and the union was, by all accounts, a decidedly happy one. Of it, Lord Shaftesbury said, “His attentions to Lady Palmerston, when they both of them were well stricken in years, were those of a perpetual courtship. The sentiment was reciprocal; and I have frequently seen them go out on a morning to plant some trees, almost believing that they would live to eat the fruit, or sit together under the shade.”

During the marriage, Lady Palmerston continued an active social role as a salon hostess. As the events were eagerly attended by foreign diplomats, Lord Palmerston would encourage his wife to float his ideas before the assembled guests and report back on their reception as a means of unofficially testing the diplomatic waters before committing himself publicly to an opinion. She could not cure his notorious lack of punctuality, a fault she shared; Queen Victoria, staying with them at Brocket, complained that Emily had kept her waiting for an hour.

In 1865, Lord Palmerston died, and Lady Palmerston followed him four years later. She was survived by her three sons and two daughters, all born during her marriage to Lord Cowper, although one of the daughters, Emily, was believed to have been fathered by Palmerston, and her son William may have been fathered by Pozzo di Borgo. They were:

• George Cowper, 6th Earl Cowper
• William Cowper-Temple, 1st Baron Mount Temple
• Charles
• Frances Jocelyn, Viscountess Jocelyn
• Emily, who married Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury.

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Regency Personalities Series-Thomas Lawrence

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.

Thomas Lawrence
13 April 1769 – 7 January 1830

Thomas Lawrence

Lawrence was born at 6 Redcross Street, Bristol, the youngest surviving child of Thomas Lawrence, a supervisor of excise, and Lucy Read, the daughter of a clergyman. The couple had 16 children but only five survived infancy: Lawrence’s brother Andrew became a clergyman; William had a career in the army; sisters Lucy and Anne married a solicitor and a clergyman (Lawrence’s nephews included Andrew Bloxam). Soon after Thomas was born his father decided to become an innkeeper and took over the White Lion Inn and next-door American Coffee House in Broad Street, Bristol. But the venture did not prosper and in 1773 Lawrence senior removed his family from Bristol and took over the tenancy of the Black Bear Inn in Devizes, a favourite stopping place for the London gentry who were making their annual trip to take the waters at Bath.

It was during the family’s six-year stay at the Black Bear Inn that Lawrence senior began to make use of his son’s precocious talents for drawing and reciting poetry. Visitors would be greeted with the words “Gentlemen, here’s my son – will you have him recite from the poets, or take your portraits?” Among those who listened to a recitation from Tom, or Tommy as he was called, was the actor David Garrick. Lawrence’s formal schooling was limited to two years at The Fort, a school in Bristol, when he was aged six to eight, and a little tuition in French and Latin from a dissenting minister. He also became accomplished in dancing, fencing, boxing and billiards. By the age of ten his fame had spread sufficiently for him to receive a mention in Daines Barrington’s Miscellanies as “without the most distant instruction from anyone, capable of copying historical pictures in a masterly style”. But once again Lawrence senior failed as a landlord and, in 1779, he was declared bankrupt and the family moved to Bath. From now on, Lawrence was to support his parents with the money he earned from his portraits.

The family settled at 2 Alfred Street in Bath, and the young Lawrence established himself as a portraitist in pastels. The oval portraits, for which he was soon charging three guineas, were about 12 inches by 10 inches (30 by 25 centimetres), and usually portrayed a half-length. His sitters included the Duchess of Devonshire, Sarah Siddons, Sir Henry Harpur (of Calke Abbey, Derbyshire, who offered to send Lawrence to Italy – Lawrence senior refused to part with his son), Warren Hastings and Sir Elijah Impey. Talented, charming and attractive (and surprisingly modest) Lawrence was popular with Bath residents and visitors: artists William Hoare and Mary Hartley gave him encouragement; wealthy people allowed him to study their collections of paintings and Lawrence’s drawing of a copy of Raphael’s Transfiguration was awarded a silver-gilt palette and a prize of 5 guineas by the Society of Arts in London.

Sometime before his eighteenth birthday in 1787 Lawrence arrived in London, taking lodgings in Leicester Square, near to Joshua Reynolds’ studio. He was introduced to Reynolds, who advised him to study nature, rather than the Old Masters. Lawrence set up a studio at 41 Jermyn Street and installed his parents in a house in Greek Street. He exhibited several works in the 1787 Royal Academy exhibition at Somerset House, and enrolled as a student at the Royal Academy but didn’t stay long, abandoning the drawing of classical statues to concentrate on his portraiture. In the Royal Academy exhibition of 1788 Lawrence was represented by five portraits in pastels and one in oils, a medium he quickly mastered. Between 1787 and his death in 1830 he would miss only two of the annual exhibitions: once, 1809, in protest about the way his paintings had been displayed and once, in 1819, because he was abroad. In 1789 he exhibited 13 portraits, mostly in oil, including one of William Linley and one of Lady Cremorne, his first attempt at a full-length portrait. The paintings received favourable comments in the press with one critic referring to him as “the Sir Joshua of futurity not far off” and, aged just twenty, Lawrence received his first royal commission, a summons arriving from Windsor Palace to paint the portraits of Queen Charlotte and Princess Amelia. The queen found Lawrence presumptuous (although he made a good impression on the princesses and ladies-in-waiting) and she didn’t like the finished portrait, which remained in Lawrence’s studio until his death. When it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790, however, it received critical acclaim. Also shown that year was another of Lawrence’s most famous portraits, that of the actress Elizabeth Farren, soon to be the Countess of Derby, “completely Elizabeth Farren: arch, spirited, elegant and engaging”, according to one newspaper.

In 1791 Lawrence was elected an associate of the Royal Academy and the following year, on the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds, King George III appointed him “painter-in-ordinary to his majesty”. His reputation was established, and he moved to a studio in Old Bond Street. In 1794 he became a full member of the Royal Academy. Although commissions were pouring in, Lawrence was in financial difficulties. His debts would stay with him for the rest of life: he narrowly avoided bankruptcy and had to be bailed out by wealthy sitters and friends, and died insolvent. Biographers have never been able to discover the source of his debts; he was a prodigiously hard worker (once referring in a letter to his portrait painting as “mill-horse business”) and didn’t appear to live extravagantly. Lawrence himself said: “I have never been extravagant nor profligate in the use of money. Neither gaming, horses, curricles, expensive entertainments, nor secret sources of ruin from vulgar licentiousness have swept it from me”. This has generally been accepted, with biographers blaming his financial problems on his generosity towards his family and others, his inability to keep accounts (in spite of advice from his friend the painter and diarist Joseph Farington), and his magnificent but costly collection of Old Master drawings.

Another source of unhappiness in Lawrence’s life was his romantic entanglement with two of Sarah Siddons’ daughters. He fell in love first with Sally, then transferred his affections on to her sister Maria, then broke with Maria and turned to Sally again. Both the sisters had fragile health; Maria died in 1798, on her deathbed extracting a promise from her sister never to marry Lawrence. Sally kept her promise and refused to see Lawrence again, dying in 1803. But Lawrence continued on friendly terms with their mother and painted several portraits of her. He never married. In later years two women would provide him with companionship, friends Elizabeth Croft and Isabella Wolff who first met Lawrence when she sat for her portrait in 1803. Isabella was married to the Danish consul Jens Wolff, but she separated from him in 1810, and Sir Michael Levey suggests that people may have wondered if Lawrence was the father of her son Herman.

Lawrence’s departures from portraiture were very rare. In the early 1790s he completed two history pictures: Homer reciting his poems, a small picture of the poet in a pastoral setting; and Satan summoning his legions, a giant canvas to illustrate lines from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The boxer John Jackson posed for the naked body of Satan; the face is that of Sarah Siddons’ brother, John Philip Kemble.

Lawrence’s parents died within a few months of each other in 1797 and he gave up his house in Picadilly, where he had moved from Old Bond Street, to set up his studio in the family home in Greek Street. By now, to keep up with the demand for replicas of his portraits, he was making use of studio assistants, most notable of whom would be William Etty and George Henry Harlow. The early years of the nineteenth century saw Lawrence’s portrait practice continue to flourish: amongst his sitters were major political figures such as Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville and William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, whose wife Lady Caroline Lamb was also painted by Lawrence. The king commissioned portraits of his daughter-in-law Caroline, the estranged wife of the Prince of Wales, and his granddaughter Charlotte. Lawrence stayed at the Montague House, the residence of the princess in Blackheath, while he was painting the portraits and thus became implicated in the “delicate investigation” into Caroline’s morals. He swore an affidavit that although he had on occasion been alone with the princess, the door had never been locked or bolted and he had “not the least objection for all the world to have heard or seen what took place”. Expertly defended by Spencer Perceval, he was exonerated.

By the time the Prince of Wales was made regent in 1814, Lawrence was acknowledged as the foremost portrait painter in the country. Through one of his sitters, Lord Charles Stewart, he met the Prince Regent who was to become his most important patron. As well as portraits of himself, the prince commissioned portraits of allied leaders: the Duke of Wellington, Field-Marshal von Blücher and Count Platov sat for Lawrence at his new house at 65 Russell Square. The prince also had plans for Lawrence to travel abroad and paint foreign royalty and leaders, and as a preliminary he was given a knighthood on 22 April 1815. Napoleon’s return from Elba put these plans on hold, although Lawrence did make a visit to Paris, where his friend Lord Charles Stewart was ambassador, and saw the art that Napoleon had looted from Italy, including Raphael’s Transfiguration, the painting he had reproduced for his silver-gilt palette as a boy.

In 1817 the prince commissioned Lawrence to paint a portrait of his daughter Princess Charlotte, who was pregnant with her first child. Charlotte died in childbirth; Lawrence completed the portrait and presented it to her husband Prince Leopold at Claremont on his birthday, as agreed. The princess’s obstetrician, Sir Richard Croft, who later shot himself, was the half-brother of Lawrence’s friend, Elizabeth Croft, and for her Lawrence drew a sketch of Croft in his coffin.

Eventually, in September 1818, Lawrence was able to make his postponed trip to the continent to paint the allied leaders, first at Aachen and then at the conference of Vienna, for what would become the Waterloo Chamber series, housed in Windsor Castle. His sitters included Tsar Alexander, Emperor Francis I of Austria, the King of Prussia, Field-Marshal Prince Schwarzenberg, Archduke Charles of Austria and Henriette his wife, and a young Napoleon II, as well as various French and Prussian ministers. In May 1819, still under orders from the Prince Regent, he left Vienna for Rome to paint Pope Pius VII and Cardinal Consalvi.

Lawrence arrived back in London 30 March 1820 to find that the president of the Royal Academy, Benjamin West, had died. That very evening Lawrence was voted the new president, a position he would hold until his death 10 years later. George III had died in January; Lawrence was granted a place in the procession for the coronation of George IV. On 28 February 1822 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society “for his eminence in art”. The royal commissions continued during the 1820s, including one for a portrait of the king’s sister Sophia, and one of Sir Walter Scott (along with Jane Austen, one of Lawrence’s favourite authors), as well as one to paint King Charles X of France for the Waterloo series, for which Lawrence made a trip to Paris, taking Herman Wolff with him. Lawrence acquired another important patron in Robert Peel, who commissioned the painter to do portraits of his family as well a portrait of George Canning. Two of Lawrence’s most famous portraits of children were painted during the 1820s: that of Emily and Laura Calmady and that of Master Charles William Lambton, painted for his father Lord Durham for 600 guineas and known as The Red Boy. The latter portrait attracted much praise when it was exhibited in Paris in 1827. One of the artist’s last commissions was of future prime-minister the Earl of Aberdeen. Fanny Kemble, a niece of Sarah Siddons, was one of his last sitters (for a drawing).

Lawrence died suddenly on 7 January 1830, just months after his friend Isabella Wolff. A few days previously he had experienced chest pains but had continued working and was eagerly anticipating a stay with his sister at Rugby, when he collapsed and died during a visit from his friends Elizabeth Croft and Archibald Keightley. After a post-mortem examination, doctors concluded that the artist’s death had been caused by ossification of the aorta and vessels of the heart. Lawrence’s first biographer, D. E. Williams suggested that this in itself was not enough to cause death and it was his doctors’ over-zealous bleeding and leeching that killed him. Lawrence was buried on 21 January in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral. Amongst the mourners was J. M. W. Turner who painted a sketch of the funeral from memory.

Lawrence was famed for the length of time he took to finish some of his paintings (Isabella Wolff waited twelve years for her portrait to be completed) and, at his death, his studio contained a large number of unfinished works. Some were completed by his assistants and other artists, some were sold as they were. In his will Lawrence left instructions to offer, at a price much below their worth, his collection of Old Master drawings to first George IV, then the trustees of the British Museum, then Robert Peel and the Earl of Dudley. None of them accepted the offer and the collection was split up and auctioned; many of the drawings later found their way into the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum. After Lawrence’s creditors had been paid, there was no money left, although a memorial exhibition at the British Institution raised £3,000 which was given to his nieces.

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Regency Personalities Series-William Lamb 2nd Viscount Melbourne

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.

William Lamb 2nd Viscount Melbourne
15 March 1779 – 24 November 1848

William Lamb

British Whig statesman who served as Home Secretary (1830–1834) and Prime Minister (1834 and 1835–1841). He is best known for his intense and successful mentoring of Queen Victoria, at ages 18–21, in the ways of politics. Historians conclude that Melbourne does not rank high as a prime minister, for there were no great foreign wars or domestic issues to handle, he lacked major achievements and enunciated no grand principles. “But he was kind, honest, and not self-seeking.

Early life
Born in London to an aristocratic Whig family, son of Sir Penniston Lamb and Elizabeth Milbanke Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne (1751–1818) and educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he fell in with a group of Romantic Radicals that included Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. In 1805 he succeeded his elder brother as heir to his father’s title and he married Lady Caroline Ponsonby. The next year he was elected to the British House of Commons as the Whig MP for Leominster. For the election in 1806 he was moved to the seat of Haddington burghs and for the 1807 election successfully stood for Portarlington (a seat he held until 1812).

He first came to general notice for reasons he would rather have avoided: his wife had a public affair with Lord Byron—she coined the famous characterisation of him as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know”. The resulting scandal was the talk of Britain in 1812. Eventually the two reconciled and though they separated in 1825, her death in 1828 affected him considerably.

In 1816 Lamb was returned for Peterborough by Whig grandee Lord Fitzwilliam. He told Lord Holland that he was committed to the Whig principles of the Glorious Revolution but not to “a heap of modern additions, interpolations, facts and fictions”. He therefore spoke against parliamentary reform and voted for the suspension of habeas corpus in 1817 when sedition was rife.

Lamb’s hallmark was finding the middle ground. Though a Whig, he accepted (29 April 1827) the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland in the moderate Tory governments of George Canning and Lord Goderich. Upon the death of his father in 1828 and his becoming Viscount Melbourne, he moved to the House of Lords. He had spent 25 years in Commons as a backbencher and politically was not well known.

Home Secretary: 1830–1834
When the Whigs came to power under Lord Grey in November 1830 he became Home Secretary in the new government. During the disturbances of 1830–32 Melbourne “acted both vigorously and sensitively, and it was for this function that his reforming brethren thanked him heartily”. In the aftermath of the Swing Riots of 1830–31 he countered the Tory magistrates’ alarmism by refusing to resort to military force and instead he advocated magistrates’ usual powers be fully enforced along with special constables and financial rewards for the arrest of rioters and rabble-rousers. He appointed a special commission to try approximately one thousand of those arrested and ensured that justice was strictly adhered to: one third were acquitted; and most of the one-fifth sentenced to death were instead transported. The disturbances over reform in 1831–32 were countered with the enforcement of the usual laws and again Melbourne refused to pass emergency legislation against sedition.

Prime Minister: 1834, 1835–1841
After Lord Grey resigned as Prime Minister in July 1834, the King was forced to appoint another Whig to replace him, as the Tories were not strong enough to support a government. Melbourne was the man most likely to be both acceptable to the King and hold the Whig party together. Melbourne hesitated after receiving from Grey the letter from the King requesting him to visit him to discuss the formation of a government. Melbourne thought he would not enjoy the extra work that accompanied the office of Premier but he did not want to let his friends and party down. According to Charles Greville, Melbourne said to his secretary, Tom Young: “I think it’s a damned bore. I am in many minds as to what to do”. Young replied:

“Why, damn it all, such a position was never held by any Greek or Roman: and if it only lasts three months, it will be worth while to have been Prime Minister of England [sic]. “By God, that’s true,” Melbourne said, “I’ll go!”

Compromise was the key to many of Melbourne’s actions. He was opposed in theory to the Reform Act 1832 proposed by the Whigs, but reluctantly believed that they were necessary to forestall the threat of revolution. While he was less radical than many, when Lord Grey resigned (July 1834), Melbourne was widely seen as the most acceptable replacement among the Whig leaders, and became Prime Minister.

King William IV’s opposition to the Whigs’ reforming ways led him to dismiss Melbourne in November. He then gave the Tories under Sir Robert Peel an opportunity to form a government. Peel’s failure to win a House of Commons majority in the resulting general election (January 1835) made it impossible for him to govern, and the Whigs returned to power under Melbourne in April 1835. This was the last time a British monarch attempted to appoint a government against parliamentary majority.

Blackmailed
The next year, Melbourne was once again involved in a sex scandal. This time he was the victim of attempted blackmail from the husband of a close friend, society beauty and author Caroline Norton. The husband demanded £1400, and when he was turned down he accused Melbourne of having an affair with his wife. At this time such a scandal would be enough to derail a major politician, so it is a measure of the respect contemporaries had for his integrity that Melbourne’s government did not fall. The king and the Duke of Wellington urged him to stay on as prime minister. After Norton failed in court, Melbourne was vindicated, but he did stop seeing Lady Norton.

Nonetheless, as historian Boyd Hilton concludes, “it is irrefutable that Melbourne’s personal life was problematic. Spanking sessions with aristocratic ladies were harmless, not so the whippings administered to orphan girls taken into his household as objects of charity.”

 

Queen Victoria
Melbourne was Prime Minister when Queen Victoria came to the throne (June 1837). Barely eighteen, she was only just breaking free from the domineering influence of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, and her mother’s advisor, John Conroy. Over the next four years Melbourne trained her in the art of politics and the two became friends: Victoria was quoted as saying she considered him like a father (her own had died when she was only eight months old), and Melbourne’s daughter had died at a young age. Melbourne was given a private apartment at Windsor Castle, and unfounded rumours circulated for a time that Victoria would marry Melbourne, forty years her senior. Tutoring Victoria was the climax of Melbourne’s career—the prime minister spent four to five hours a day visiting and writing to her, and she responded with enthusiasm, and grew in wisdom.

n May 1839, Melbourne’s resignation led to the Bedchamber Crisis. Prospective prime minister Robert Peel requested that Victoria dismiss some of the wives and daughters of Whig MPs who made up her personal entourage, arguing that the monarch should avoid any hint of favouritism to a party out of power. As the Queen refused to comply, supported by Melbourne although unaware that Peel had not requested the resignation of all the Queen’s ladies as she had led him to believe, Peel refused to form a new government and Melbourne was persuaded to stay on as Prime Minister.

Melbourne left a considerable list of reforming legislation—not as long as that of Lord Grey, but worthy nonetheless. Among his administration’s acts were a reduction in the number of capital offences, reforms of local government, and the reform of the Poor laws. This restricted the terms on which the poor were allowed relief and established compulsory admission to workhouses for the impoverished.

On 25 February 1841, he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Later life (1841–1848)
Even after Melbourne resigned permanently in August 1841, Victoria continued writing to him but eventually the correspondence ceased as it was seen as inappropriate. Melbourne’s role faded away as Victoria came to rely on her new husband Prince Albert as well as on herself.

On his death his titles passed to his brother Frederick.

Family
Apparently Lamb had a dark side once all the brouhaha with his wife was done. He had married Caroline Ponsonby who stated she did not like Byron’s poetry and then spent her life in an open affair with Lord Byron. A man who had been a friend of Lamb’s when they were at University together.

Caroline Ponsonby

They had a premature daughter and one son, George Augustus Frederick, born on 11 August 1807, who possibly had severe autism. Until Byron, they had a happy life. Caroline died in 1828, after Byron had died, and had also married Caroline’s cousin, who later separated from him.

Aside from the rumors that circulated about Byron at such time, later in life rumors circulated against the widower Lamb. Rumors suggesting that he may have engaged in spanking of high-born ladies, but whipping of those from the streets.

First Ministry

07/16/1834 11/14/1834

OFFICE         NAME         TERM

First Lord of the Treasury

Leader of the House of Lords         The Viscount Melbourne         July–November 1834

Lord Chancellor T        he Lord Brougham         July–November 1834

Lord President of the Council         The Marquess of Lansdowne         July–November 1834

Lord Privy Seal         Earl of Mulgrave         July–November 1834

Home Secretary         Viscount Duncannon         July–November 1834

Foreign Secretary         The Viscount Palmerston         July–November 1834

Secretary of State for War & the Colonies        Thomas Spring Rice         July–November 1834

First Lord of the Admiralty         The Lord Auckland         July–November 1834

Chancellor of the Exchequer

Leader of the House of Commons         Viscount Althorp         July–November 1834

President of the Board of Trade

Treasurer of the Navy         Charles Poulett Thomson         July–November 1834

President of the Board of Control         Charles Grant         July–November 1834

Master of the Mint         James Abercromby         July–November 1834

First Commissioner of Woods & Forests         Sir John Hobhouse, Bt         July–November 1834

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster         The Lord Holland         July–November 1834

Paymaster of the Forces         Lord John Russell         July–November 1834

Secretary at War         Edward Ellice         July–November 1834

Second Ministry

April 1835 – August 1839

OFFICE         NAME         TERM

First Lord of the Treasury         The Viscount Melbourne         April 1835–August 1839

Lord Chancellor In Commission                 April 1835–January 1836

          The Lord Cottenham         January 1836–August 1839

Lord President of the Council         The Marquess of Lansdowne         April 1835–August 1839

Lord Privy Seal         Viscount Duncannon         April 1835–August 1839

Home Secretary         The Lord John Russell         April 1835–August 1839

Foreign Secretary         The Viscount Palmerston         April 1835–August 1839

Secretary of State for War & the Colonies        The Lord Glenelg         April 1835–February 1839

          The Marquess of Normanby         February–August 1839

First Lord of the Admiralty         The Lord Auckland         April–September 1835

          The Earl of Minto         September 1835–August 1839

Chancellor of the Exchequer         Thomas Spring Rice         April 1835–August 1839

President of the Board of Trade         Charles Poulett Thomson         April 1835–August 1839

President of the Board of Control         Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Bt         April 1835–August 1839

First Commissioner of Woods & Forests         Viscount Duncannon         April 1835–August 1839

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster         The Lord Holland         April 1835–August 1839

Secretary at War         Viscount Howick         April 1835–August 1839

    Viscount Duncannon served concurrently as Lord Privy Seal and First Commissioner of Woods and Forests.

                August 1839 – September 1841

OFFICE         NAME         TERM

First Lord of the Treasury

Leader of the House of Lords         The Viscount Melbourne         August 1839–September 1841

Lord Chancellor         The Lord Cottenham         August 1839–September 1841

Lord President of the Council         The Marquess of Lansdowne         August 1839–September 1841

Lord Privy Seal         Viscount Duncannon         August 1839–January 1840

          The Lord Clarendon         January 1840–September 1841

Home Secretary         The Marquess of Normanby         August 1839–September 1841

Foreign Secretary         The Viscount Palmerston         August 1839–September 1841

Secretary of State for War & the Colonies

Leader of the House of Commons         The Lord John Russell         August 1839–September 1841

First Lord of the Admiralty         The Earl of Minto         August 1839–September 1841

Chancellor of the Exchequer         Sir Francis Thornhill Baring         August 1839–September 1841

President of the Board of Trade         Henry Labouchere         August 1839–September 1841

President of the Board of Control         Sir John Cam Hobhouse         August 1839–September 1841

First Commissioner of Woods & Forests         Viscount Duncannon         August 1839–September 1841

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster         The Lord Holland August         1839–October 1840

          The Lord Clarendon October         1840–June 1841

          Sir George Grey, Bt         June–September 1841

Secretary at War         Thomas Babington Macaulay         August 1839–September 1841

Chief Secretary for Ireland         Lord Morpeth August         1839–September 1841

 

The Third Ministry was during the time of Victoria.

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Regency Personalities Series-William Hunter Cavendish 5th Duke of Devonshire

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.

William Hunter Cavendish 5th Duke of Devonshire
14 December 1748 – 29 July 1811

William Hunter Cavendish 5th Duke of Devonshire

Cavendish was a British aristocrat and politician. He was the eldest son of the William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire by his wife the heiress Lady Charlotte Boyle, suo jure Baroness Clifford of Lanesborough, who brought in considerable money and estates to the Cavendish family. He was invited to join the Cabinet on three occasions, but declined each offer. He was Lord High Treasurer of Ireland and Governor of Cork, and Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire. The 5th Duke is best known for his first wife Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. At the age of about twenty, Devonshire toured Italy with William Fitzherbert which is where they commissioned the pair of portraits by Pompeo Batoni.

He was married twice: first, to Lady Georgiana Spencer; second, to Lady Elizabeth Foster, née Hervey, daughter of the 4th Earl of Bristol, who had been his mistress and his first wife’s friend and confidante for more than twenty years.

By his first wife, he had one son (William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, sometimes called “The Bachelor Duke”, who succeeded him and who died unmarried in 1858), and two daughters: Lady Georgiana “Little G” Cavendish, later the Countess of Carlisle (wife of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle), and Lady Harriet “Harryo” Cavendish, later the Countess Granville (wife of Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, who was created 1st Earl Granville). Both daughters left descendants. The title of Baron Clifford of Lanesborough has fallen into abeyance between them.

Georgiana Cavendish became a socialite who gathered around her a large circle of literary and political friends. She was painted by Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds; the Gainsborough painting was disposed of by the 5th Duke and was recovered only much later, after many vicissitudes.

By his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Foster, he had no legitimate issue. A son, Augustus, was given the surname Clifford and became Sir Augustus Clifford and rose to senior rank in the navy. His descendants eventually died out in the male line in 1895. His daughter by Lady Elizabeth, Caroline, was given a different surname from her brother, St. Jules. Caroline St. Jules married the Hon. George Lamb, a brother of the 2nd Viscount Melbourne (himself married to Lady Caroline Ponsonby, niece of Lady Georgiana Spencer, the 5th Duke’s 1st wife).

The 5th Duke also had a daughter — Charlotte, given the surname Williams – by his mistress, Charlotte Spencer, the daughter of an indigent clergyman. His first child was born shortly after his marriage to Lady Georgiana Spencer (no relation to his mistress). Charlotte was later married off suitably.

The fifth Duke was closely involved with the nearby spa town of Buxton. He used the profits from his copper mines to transform the town into a replica of Bath, including the Crescent Hotel and an octagonal set of stables, which would later become The Devonshire Dome.

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