Lady Mary Lovelace | |
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| Born | Mary Caroline Stuart-Wortley 1848 |
| Died | 1941 |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation(s) | Artist, Architect, Author |
| Spouse(s) | Ralph Milbanke Lord Wentworth, later Earl of Lovelace |
| Parents |
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Lady Mary Lovelace (1848-1941) was an artist, architect, and author as well as a member of the British nobility. [1]
Born Mary Caroline Stuart-Wortley, she grew up in London in a small house in St. James Place with her parents, the politician Rt. Hon. James Archibald Stuart-Wortley and noted philanthropist Hon Jane Stuart-Wortley (née Lawley), and four siblings. [1]
She trained as an artist at the Slade School in Gower Street, an undertaking made more difficult by requiring accompaniment on the journey to and from so as to maintain respectability. [1] She married Ralph King Milbanke Lord Wentworth (who became Earl of Lovelace) at 32, an age that was considered unusually old for the time. [1]
After marrying, she continued painting, exhibiting at the Grosvenor Gallery, as well as training with a firm of architects in 1893 that included C.F.A. Voysey, an architect and furniture and textile designer who worked in the Arts and Crafts style, [2] [3] a movement that influenced her considerably. [1] This training gave her the ability to design and improve cottages on her husband’s properties at Ockham Park, Surrey, and Ashley Combe, Somerset. [2] According to the “Historic Ockham” Facebook group, she designed the Parish Rooms and the Lovelace Cottages which were gifted to the villagers of Ockham. [4] During the First World War, she organized the reconstruction of a small harbour at Porlock Weir which, upon completion, was able to supply timber for the building of trenches. [1] Additionally, she was a member of the Chelsea Society, a charitable society concerned with architecture, land use, and infrastructural planning within the Chelsea area of London, [5] as well as a committee member of the Home Arts and Industries Association (HAIA), an arts education society based in London, and the Kyrle Society, who campaigned for ‘open spaces” as well as the Recreational Evening Class Movement. [3]
The most well documented architectural work of Lady Mary Lovelace is a work attributed to C.F.A. Voysey called the Lilleycombe House, built near Porlock, Somerset. [6] Due to the latter's notoriety, it was featured in The British Architect in 1912, before construction, described as such:
"This house has been designed by Mary, Countess of Lovelace, assisted by Mr. C.F.A. Voysey, of 23, York Place, W. It is to be built in local stone and cement roughcast, and roofed with Delabode slates. The site being a steep slope to the south overlooking a great valley, with Exmoor beyond, will account for the varying levels of the floors. Every precaution was necessary to guard against the south-west winds." [6]
Lady Mary Lovelace was also a writer and editor; she wrote the introduction and edited a book by her husband, titled Astarte, about his grandfather, Lord Byron, the famous poet. [7] Additionally, she published a memoir about her husband. [8]
Due to her work in multiple disciplines, including philanthropy, Lady Mary Lovelace has been described by art historian Anne Anderson as a “lady reformer” or “’new woman’ of the era who quietly reshaped the roles and responsibilities of women in later Victorian and Edwardian England.” [3] While she is remembered as working towards the advancement of women, her brand of feminism is described as “want[ing] to gain admittance into the world of policy making, not disrupt[ing] it.” [3] As a notable woman of her time, Mary was portrayed in Edward Burne-Jones' famous painting, The Golden Stairs. [9]
Lady Mary Lovelace's ashes are buried in All Saints' Church, Ockham. The church's King Chapel, intended as a chapel over the family vault, still contains the funerary urn with her ashes and those of the 2nd Earl of Lovelace. The urn has the form of a stone casket on monolithic pedestal with heraldic enamel plaques. [10]
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, also known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation.
Marquess of the County of Bute, shortened in general usage to Marquess of Bute, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1796 for John Stuart, 4th Earl of Bute.
Earl of Wharncliffe, in the West Riding of the County of York, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
Earl of Lovelace was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1838 for William King-Noel, 8th Baron King, a title created in 1725.
Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron, nicknamed Annabella and commonly known as Lady Byron, was an educational reformer and philanthropist who established the first industrial school in England, and was an active abolitionist. She married the poet George Gordon Byron, more commonly known as Lord Byron, and separated from him after less than a year, keeping their daughter Ada Lovelace in her custody despite laws at the time giving fathers sole custody of children.
Peter King, 1st Baron King,, commonly referred to as Lord King, was an English lawyer and politician, who became Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain.
William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace,, styled The Lord King from 1833 to 1838, was an English nobleman and scientist. He was the husband of Lord Byron's daughter Ada, today remembered as a pioneering computer scientist.
Baron Wentworth is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1529 for Thomas Wentworth, who was also de jure sixth Baron le Despencer of the 1387 creation. The title was created by writ, which means that it can descend via female lines.
Elizabeth Medora Leigh was the third daughter of Augusta Leigh. It is widely speculated that she was fathered by her mother's half-brother Lord Byron; this is supported by comments from his widow, even though her mother's husband, Colonel George Leigh, was her legal father.
James Archibald Stuart-Wortley, PC, QC was a British Conservative Party politician and the husband of the philanthropist Jane Stuart-Wortley.
Ada Byron Milbanke, 14th Baroness Wentworth was a British peer.
Byron King-Noel, 12th Baron Wentworth, styled Viscount Ockham was a British peer and the eldest of the three legitimate grandchildren of poet Lord Byron.
John Stuart-Wortley, 2nd Baron Wharncliffe FRS, was a British Tory politician. He served briefly as Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies between December 1834 and January 1835.
Ralph Gordon King-Milbanke, 2nd Earl of Lovelace was a British author of Astarte: A Fragment of Truth concerning George Gordon Byron, Sixth Lord Byron.
Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne was one of the most influential of the political hostesses of the extended Regency period, and the wife of Whig politician Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne. She was the mother of William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and several other influential children. Lady Melbourne was known for her political influence and her friendships and romantic relationships with other members of the English aristocracy, including Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford, and George, Prince of Wales. Because of her numerous love affairs, the paternity of several of her children is a matter of dispute.
The Golden Stairs is one of the best-known paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones. It was begun in 1876 and was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1880.
Jane Stuart-Wortley or Jane Thompson; Jane Lawley was an English philanthropist.
Caroline Elizabeth Mary Stuart-Wortley, Baroness Wharncliffe, styled Lady Caroline Crichton from 1789 until her marriage, was an Irish-born British aristocrat and female artist known for her landscape and figurative drawing and painting. A number of these artworks are in the Tate collection and archives.
Greyfriars is a Grade II* listed house located on the Hog's Back, in the civil parish of Wanborough, in Surrey, England. It was built in 1896 for the novelist and playwright Julian Sturgis and was designed by the arts and crafts architect C.F.A. Voysey. It has been Grade II* listed on the National Heritage List for England since December 1984. The house was previously known as Wancote, and was initially called Merleshanger.
Sir Ralph Noel, 6th Baronet was a British landowner and politician, father-in-law of Lord Byron and grandfather of the mathematician Lady Ada Lovelace. Before 1815 he was known as Sir Ralph Milbanke.
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