The Victorian preoccupation with death was understandable – an honest realism given relatively high mortality rates.1
Pat Jalland
When people think of mourning in the nineteenth century they often picture the strict Victorian mourning rituals of the period from 1860 onwards – a practice which was begun by Queen Victoria who went into deepest mourning for her husband Prince Albert (she never wore colours again after his death) and by doing so begun a fashion for mourning which became increasingly strict and regimented as the expectations of society increased. However, in the Georgian period, mourning could be just as strict and regimented, with many rules and customs surrounding the rituals and behaviour expected upon the death of a loved one.
Black was expected to be worn but in the upper echelons of society, one could not simply just wear a black gown; a whole mourning wardrobe would be purchased for the period which could last up to a year, jet necklaces were worn by women for their deep black colour, and lace adornments were added to clothing and accessories. Funerals became more and more grand and as expectations increased so did the number of companies who catered for such events and who profited from people’s grief. Of course, different levels of society had different expectations but for the aristocracy who were so often in the public eye, mourning and grief became as public as it once was private.
Mourning periods for husbands or wives were usually one year and one day in length; the period for parents, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins decreases as you go down the family tree from six months to one week. After the initial deep mourning period a move towards half-mourning occurred and people could wear greys, lilacs, purples and other muted colours. The mourning period could last as long as eighteen months and so some people could end up wearing mourning clothes for many years depending on the frequency of deaths within the household.
Sadly, tragedy does not discriminate in where it hits and does not take into account age, gender, status or economic stability. Elizabeth, Harriet and Mary were not immune to tragedy and suffered with several instances of tragedy in their lifetimes.
Pat Jalland in her book Death in the Victorian Family, states that ‘before 1870 mortality had remained high, with shorter life expectancy and a particularly high death rate for infants and children […] the death rate for infants scarcely changed between 1850 and 1900 and the deaths of babies still numbered one-quarter of all deaths by the end of the century’.2 Clearly the loss of a child was a very real threat to these women, and indeed both Mary and Elizabeth lost children, however tragedy could also strike in different ways.
Statistically women have always lived longer than men, and for Mary and Harriet, they were to outlive their husbands by decades, similar to Queen Victoria. As widows of wealthy gentlemen, and with sons who had inherited the estate and money, they would have been much better cared for than widows of poor women who were often forced to remarry quickly for financial support, or to try and find work to support the family alone. The inheritance of a son meant that aristocratic women were often removed from a position of power, influence and purpose upon the death of their husband, and so suddenly found themselves without a husband and an occupation. As a result of this, many widowed women began to have a bigger role in philanthropic work, both donating to charities and being actively involved in events and fund raising for charities. We see this with both Mary and Harriet, who donated significant amounts in their later years.
During her twenty-six years of marriage Elizabeth Manners suffered with a number of tragedies, the first of which was the death of her eldest daughter Caroline. In November of 1804, Elizabeth was in Brighton with her two daughters whilst John Henry was in Wilsford, Lincolnshire at his shooting estate. We do not know if Elizabeth travelled to Brighton specifically for the health benefits, but that was probably the reason as Caroline, the Duchess’s eldest daughter, was suffering with a severe chest complaint and clean sea air as well as mineral waters would have been prescribed by physicians as a treatment. Chest complaints in the nineteenth century were difficult to treat and diseases such as tuberculosis (known as consumption) ravaged hundreds of thousands of victims. The only treatments for these types of diseases were to move the patient to a location with clean, fresh air which was thought to help clean the lungs. Pain relieving medication such as opiates could be prescribed to help with the pain as the condition became worse, but there was no cure and it has been estimated that in the mid-nineteenth century almost a quarter of all deaths were caused by tuberculosis.
It is clear from letters at this time that both Elizabeth and John Henry were very distracted and could only think of the health of their daughter. Elizabeth herself decided that they would not travel to London for the winter months as she feared, quite understandably, that the fog and smog of London would be worse for Caroline who had difficulty breathing. A heart-breaking letter to the Duke on the 21 November shows Elizabeth prepared for the worst and yet hoping desperately for the best:
It will indeed be most wonderful if she ever gets over it, at present it appears next to impossible if one is to judge from her looks, the only hope and comfort is, that her breath is rather better than it was, not so hurried, or so short as it was … My heart is almost broke to see her in this state, at the same time she talks very sensibly, in short it is not possible for any one [sic] to say what may happen I assure you. I am prepared, most perfectly prepared.3
This was the last letter between the duke and duchess, the silence speaking almost as much as her letters did. We do not have an exact date for the death of Caroline, presumably because no letters were sent and the family would have remained very private in their Brighton apartments, but it was certainly only a few days after this letter was sent.
The funeral took place on 1 December 1804 and the tragedy was noted by Harriet Cavendish in a letter to her mother in the same month, ‘Lady Carlisle received the melancholy news of the death of the Duchess of Rutland’s little girl this morning. I believe she has been for some time in a very hopeless state.’4 This sadly comes just a month after Harriet had celebrated the duchess’s birthday at Castle Howard on 13 November. As can be expected, the death of her daughter clearly devastated Elizabeth and for several months, Elizabeth struggled to cope with the loss.
Tragedy was to strike again just three years later in 1807 when Elizabeth gave birth to her first son and heir to the family fortune, George John Henry Manners on 26 June. On 31 July, Harriet attended George’s christening, noting that the king himself was a godparent, although Lord St Helens attended for him. However, on 3 August Harriet wrote to her grandmother saying ‘The Carlisles are in great uneasiness about the Duchess of Rutland’s little boy who was taken extremely ill and is thought to be in danger. There is no post tomorrow and we can hear nothing further till Wednesday’, at which point she again writes to her grandmother to confirm the sad news that Elizabeth’s son had died,
I suppose you will see in the newspapers that the Duchess of Rutland last lost her little boy. It must have been a great schock [sic] to her, and I hear she is very much overcome by it. He was never healthy, and many people felt alarmed about him from the first.5
The newspapers of the time do not speculate on how he died but merely state that it happened at the duke and duchess’s London residence in Grosvenor Street.
The fight for a son and heir seemed to be plagued with sorrow as Elizabeth was destined to lose yet another son. George John, (this time Frederick), Manners, named after his elder brother, was born with good health on 20 August 1813. His parents were thrilled and the first year of his life passed uneventfully until suddenly, in his tenth month, he was afflicted with teething pains which ended in tragedy. The Morning Chronicle wrote the following about the event,
The marquis [the title Marquis of Granby has always been given to the heir to the Dukedom of Rutland] had been ailing four days with cutting his teeth, but on Tuesday symptoms became alarming and a consultation was held betwixt Sir Walter Farquhar, Doctors Croft, Knight &c. Dr Bailie was after called in but no medical aid was effectual. The child was in convulsions the whole of the night and it was discovered that he died of water upon the brain.6
Whilst teething as a cause of death is almost impossible in current times, in the nineteenth century and before, the risk of fever which is common with a teething infant, coupled with the difficulty at the time in trying to regulate an infant’s temperature helps to explain why this cause of death was more prevalent at the time. Nevertheless, it would still have been a devastating shock to the family.
By this time Elizabeth and John Henry had lost three of their seven children. There are almost no surviving letters or written information about how the couple coped with these tragedies, perhaps because they were together, or perhaps because those letters were destroyed at a later date. We know that the duke ordered much of his private letters to be destroyed and so such private and personal letters regarding loss may have also been lost. Letters written by others at the time however note that the duke and duchess were heavily afflicted by the losses and we know that Elizabeth mourned the loss of her children until her own death.
It is entirely possible that a trip to Paris just a month later was an attempt to take Elizabeth’s mind off the loss of her son and to throw herself back into the project of improving the castle. Certainly, it took her away from both London and Belvoir Castle where she would have been reminded of the absence of her three lost children in the nursery. A trip to Paris could have been part of a plan by John Henry to help combat some of those emotions. The death of George John Frederick Manners in 1814 was the last tragedy to hit her children and she continued on to having three more sons between 1815 and 1820, Charles Cecil Manners, John Manners and George John Manners, who were all born healthy and lived to adulthood.
Elizabeth was not the only one of our women to suffer significant tragedy within the nursery. On 15 March 1828, at their home Lamport Hall, Mary and Justinian Isham’s eldest daughter Mariette Isham succumbed to the measles and died aged 14. Mary notes this tragic incident in her journal:
March 15 1828 | My dear & lamented daughter Mary died at Lamport after the effects of severe measles, aged 14, the funeral took place March 227
Whilst we think the earlier parts of Mary’s ‘Memoranda’ journal may have been written later in her life, it may be that entries from around this time were written as they happened. It is interesting that she notes ‘severe measles’ suggesting that the case was a serious one and perhaps took Mariette’s life quickly. In this instance, there is no suggestion that the infection spread to the other children or members of the family.
Whilst diseases such as typhus, diphtheria, cholera and influenza were endemic at the time, frequently rising to epidemic status following hot summers or instances of famine (in 1846, Irish immigrants, escaping the potato famine in Ireland, caused a widespread epidemic of typhus throughout the North of England and Scotland), other diseases such as measles and whooping cough killed thousands of children and infants without ever becoming epidemics. For this reason, they could seem more dangerous and deadly as they could strike without warning and there was seemingly no way to avoid them, and no safe place to hide from them.
There is some suggestion that the portraits of ‘the children’ which are noted in Mary’s journal as arriving at Lamport in June 1828, included a portrait of Mariette Isham which would certainly have been an emotional moment for Mary. However, it may also be that in the months following Mariette’s death, whilst the family were in London for the season, they had the portraits drawn up and they were delivered some months later. If this is true, the presence of the two portraits must still have been a stark reminder that there should have been three.
In the years following the premature death of Mariette Isham, Mary, Justinian, Justinian Vere and Charles lived happily at Lamport Hall, journeying between the house they now felt was theirs in style as well as ownership, and London, as well as visiting friends and family across the country. They sent their boys off to school, Justinian Vere at Eton and Charles to Rugby before watching them both set off for the Grand Tour in Europe, and at home Mary busied herself, continuing to make alterations to the house as noted in more detail in chapter three. However, the happiness came to an abrupt halt in 1845 when Justinian died on 26 March. Mary again noted this sad occasion in her journal with surprising brevity: ‘My lamented husband Sir Justinian Isham Bart. Died aged 71. The funeral took place April 2nd.’8
Mary and Justinian’s eldest son Justinian Vere, who by this time was 29, succeeded to the baronetcy as the 9th Baronet of Lamport Hall and Estate. Not much is recorded about the early months of Justinian Vere’s time as Baronet at Lamport Hall but some documentation exists at the Northamptonshire Record office to suggest that he was asked to take up his late father’s role as a colonel in the Northamptonshire Militia. It is not clear whether he actually agreed to take on the role but we know that he spent a lot of time in Cheltenham where he was recommended to go for his health and so it is likely that he rejected this role. The Northamptonshire Record Office also holds a document relating to the South Midland Railway Proposal dated 2 December 1845, asking for Justinian Vere’s input to proposed plans to build the railway line. From the document, it seems that the line would run through much of Lamport Estate lands and potentially through tenants’ land, meaning he would have to cut down the amount of land rented by those tenants.9 There is no surviving response from Justinian Vere, but the railway did eventually open in 1859 and so it may be that Justinian Vere did give his approval – or perhaps he did not, which delayed the work. Whilst these documents show that Justinian Vere was shouldering responsibility almost as soon as he succeeded to the baronetcy, it is hard to come to a conclusion as to his ability to step into his father’s boots as they do not show decisive action, nor are they many in number.
Megan Leyland in her PhD thesis about Lamport Hall states that ‘he suffered so greatly from his father’s death that, upon medical advice he moved to Cheltenham to avoid the stresses of day to day business and seems to have left the running of the family home to his mother and younger brother’.10 For Mary this must have been particularly difficult; whilst she would have been concerned for the health and wellbeing of her eldest son, she was definitely suffering emotionally from the loss of her husband. Despite this she pulled herself through admirably by administering to the estate and managing to keep things running. Her son Charles Edmund would have supported his mother also where possible, learning some valuable skills that he would need in the not too distant future.
Just eighteen months after the death of his father, on 2 September 1846, Justinian Vere committed suicide in his Cheltenham home. He left no note or indication of the reason for his decision to end his life, however a notice placed in the Chelmsford Chronicle may give some insight into his state of mind at the time:
SUICIDE BY A GENTLEMAN OF FORTUNE. – A very remarkable and distressing suicide by a gentleman of fortune, residing in this town, was discovered on Tuesday afternoon. The unfortunate deceased, Sir Justinian Vere Isham, Bart. has been a resident of Cheltenham for about two years, and has resided during that time in Pittville Villas. His valet was alarmed that his master did not appear at the usual dinner hour, half-past six, and went to his bedroom for the purpose of inquiring into the cause of his absence, when he was surprised to find the door fast, and that he could obtain no answer from within.
A police officer who was at hand was called in, as was also Mr. Newenham, chemist, of Leamington-Place, and the door being forced open the deceased was discovered lying on his side in the bed in a pool of blood. He held a double-barrelled pistol in his right hand, and it was found upon examination that one of the barrels had been discharged. The ball appears to have penetrated the roof of the mouth and the brain, and it is conjectured that the result was instantaneous death.
No report was heard by the inmates of the house, and from the state of the body, life must have been extinct from two to three hours. Two other pistols lay upon the bed, and both, as also the second barrel of the pistol found in the hand of deceased were loaded with ball. The unfortunate deceased was a fine athletic man, about thirty years of age, and has but lately succeeded his father in the title and estates. He was the eldest son of the late Sir Justinian […] Isham, Bart. of Lamport-hall [sic], Northamptonshire. He was rather eccentric in his habits and turn of mind, and it is presumed that melancholy induced him to the committal of the rash act.
– Cheltenham Chronicle, Friday 4 September 184611
The notice states that Sir Justinian Vere was eccentric in his ‘habits and turn of mind’ and that melancholy may have been the reason behind his suicide.
Eccentricity within the Victorian period was considered a fashionable characteristic. It spoke of an enquiring mind, spiritualism, invention and other areas of study which prior to this period were not particularly popular but which saw a huge upsurge during the later nineteenth century. Whilst generally an eccentric person is viewed as harmless and amiable, there were some darker sides to being an eccentric, mockery and humiliation by one’s peers for example. Miranda Gill states that ‘eccentricity often elicited violent and conflicting responses, and was associated with potentially disturbing figures such as the insane, social marginals […] and the tempestuous Romantic genius.’12 It was a label used to excuse particular interests or behaviours and it may be that Justinian Vere became known as an eccentric due to his interest in astrology, (he noted astrological movements as well as lunar eclipses in his journals), spiritualism and a general inability to cope with the responsibilities which had been thrust upon him following his father’s death. The emotional turmoil created by the loss as well as the sudden accession to the title and estates could have affected Justinian Vere more than someone with a stronger personality and so this may in some ways explain his actions.
Mary Isham records the sad event in her journal noting,
25th August 1846 | My lamented son Justinian Vere die at Cheltenham. Funeral took place at Lamport, sorrow after sorrow.13
Her incredibly sad ending to the entry, ‘sorrow after sorrow’ gives us a rare insight into her emotional state at the time. This would have been impacted more by the circumstances – you will note she does not talk of suicide in her journal entry for Justinian Vere’s death. The impact of the suicide is barely spoken of in any of the surviving documentation at Northamptonshire Record Office. This may be because as Rosie Garwood notes, ‘not only was the death […] a family tragedy – as an illegal act, it was also a source of shame. The atmosphere of secrecy surrounding his death survived well into the twentieth-century.’14
Suicide was only decriminalised in 1961 for England and Wales, prior to that it could result in the loss of an estate or family lands. Debts accumulated by the victim did not die with the victim and so many who ended their lives due to debt simply handed them over to family members, usually wives and children who had no immediate ways of repaying those debts. In many cases then, suicides were referred to as ‘accidents’ to avoid the shame and any repercussions. For example, the suicide of the Earl of Bath, Charles Grenville was attributed to the ‘casual going off of a pistol’. Justinian Vere’s suicide was actually attributed as such, although we have no evidence that there were any repercussions as a result of this. It is possible that the ‘melancholy’ to which the newspapers referred was cited as a cause of death and so a mental health reason may have excused the act at the time, in terms of its illegality.
Within the course of two years, the family dynamic at Lamport Hall changed from a happy family of four to a widow with one surviving son who had never anticipated that he would inherit the title and family home. To add to the sorrow for Mary, one month later Charles set off on a Grand Tour of the continent with his cousin (Mary’s nephew) Maxwell Close, leaving her in a house empty of family and full of sadness.
Whether Charles decided to marry quicker due to his new title and situation, or whether he was already prepared to marry we do not know, however on 26 October 1847 Charles married Emily Vaughan at St George’s Church in London followed by a brief honeymoon on the Isle of Wight. In November, they officially moved into Lamport Hall and Charles officially took up his role as the Baronet of Lamport, and Mary had to hand her title and management of the hall to her new daughter-in-law, the new Lady Emily Isham.
You would hope that by this time, and at the age of 70, she would not witness any further tragic events, and indeed in the next twenty years she saw the birth of three granddaughters Louisa Mary, Emily Caroline and Isabel Vere, which must have been a great comfort to Mary who had not had a young female relative in her close life since the death of her daughter Mary. But it seems that sadness had one more blow to deal and on 14 February 1868 ‘my darling Isabel Vere died’.15 The tone of this entry in her journal gives us an insight into the relationship between Mary and her younger family. Clearly, she was very close to her grandchildren, and possibly closest to the youngest in the family, Isabel, who looked a lot more like the Isham family than her two elder sisters who were fair like the Vaughan family. At the age of 81 Mary must have felt exhausted with the tragedy in her life.
For Harriet, tragedy came to her later in her life. Aside from the death of her mother and father, there seems to have been little loss in the first half-century of her life.
In 1831, Susan and Georgiana, Harriet and Granville’s two daughters were launched into Parisian society and in 1833, after a two-year flirtation, Susan married Lord Rivers, and later in 1833 Georgiana married Alexander Fullerton. In May 1833 Granville was created an earl and Harriet became Countess Granville; a few days later however, just before Georgiana’s wedding, tragedy struck the family. Harriet and Granville’s middle son William became gravely ill and died suddenly.
William was born in September 1816 and there is not a large amount of information recording his illness. His brother Granville stated that he was crippled from a young age, however Betty Askwith, Harriet’s biographer, states that ‘he seems to have suffered from some wasting disease, possibly leukaemia of the bone marrow’. Whilst there is no empirical evidence to prove a wasting disease, the reference by his brother to being crippled could support that, as a wasting disease in his bones would cause frailty and an inability to walk. Furthermore, Harriet’s daughter Susan was to lose four of her sons to a similar condition, suggesting it was a hereditary illness. There was nothing mentally wrong with William and indeed references to his education by Harriet seem to indicate that he was actually very clever. Despite his illness he did travel with the family to The Hague and Paris. In 1831 Harriet’s two daughters had travelled to England for the London season where they had met their future husbands and therefore in 1833, Harriet, Granville and the boys visited England, for Susan’s wedding and later Georgiana’s. We do not know why William went to Brighton rather than staying with the family in London, but presumably it was so that he could benefit from ‘the baths’ and the clean air, as prescribed by Sir Benjamin Brodie, a celebrated surgeon of the time who treated him occasionally.
In May 1833, whilst the family were in London, Harriet, who had just been to Brighton to visit William, had scarcely arrived back when news reached her that William was dead. Her daughter Georgiana wrote the following about the incident:
Mamma was at Brighton last week, and the day before she came away, the servant who was carrying poor William slipped and fell down. At the moment William did not appear the least hurt, excepting a blow on the eye. The doctor saw him and reassured mamma she might go perfectly comfortably that there was no mischief whatever done. We thought no more of it till yesterday when we came home from Church, we found poor Mamma quite miserable. […] On Saturday morning the blood had rushed to the poor boy’s head, and by five o’clock all was over, but it was apparently without pain and without a struggle. For himself, dear boy, we ought not, we must not, lament it. His life was not a happy one, never could have been a happy one, and we may hope that God Almighty has in mercy taken him to Himself.16
This tragic accident, which was made much worse for Harriet who had thought herself secure in leaving William to return to London, affected the family deeply. Frederick, the youngest child in the family, noted in his memoirs that it was ‘my first great sorrow. […] He (William) was most loveable and I was devotedly attached to him, perhaps all the more for his having been a great invalid. I returned soon afterwards to Eton with a heavy heart.’17
In collections of Harriet’s letters, William’s illness or affliction is not mentioned and this may be because having a sick or afflicted child at this time was not often spoken about. However, because William’s affliction was physical rather than mental, he remained with the family, although references to his illness are not remarked upon. Georgiana, Harriet’s sister, had a son, also named William, who suffered from some degree of mental disability and for most of his childhood he was raised by a clergyman away from the family.
Mental illness or physical disability was not regularly spoken of in the nineteenth century and children who were afflicted with a particular disability were often kept in an almost secret existence, either cared for at home or sometimes they were sent to institutions which would care for them. The popular view of children being abandoned within an institute, whilst not untrue, is less common than films and books would lead you to believe, and many children with disabilities were simply cared for at home either by the family directly or, if they were wealthy, by a number of specially employed staff. Sometimes, gentry or aristocratic families would not wish to bring to the attention of society and the newspapers that they had a child with disabilities and so rather than placing their child in an institution, would pay a private family to care for them discreetly, as we see with Georgiana Morpeth, Harriet’s sister.
Whilst we can assume that there was some form of social reason why Harriet does not talk about William’s illness we can also reason that some of that reticence comes from Harriet’s personality as well. Harriet was not able to cope very well with negative emotions and tended to shut people out and refuse to acknowledge tragedy. We see this with the death of her mother, where there is very little recorded about the death and her feelings about it. Similarly, in this instance when her son dies, there are no surviving letters that speak about it. This is not to say there weren’t any, but subsequent family members may have destroyed them; however, judging by her reaction to other tragedies it seems more likely that she simply chose not to pour her emotions out to her sister or on paper.
It seems that Granville may have suffered a small stroke during this time. Not much was known about it as it was so slight, and there is some suggestion that it may only have been severe gout, but either way, Granville began to use a stick for support when feeling particularly weak and it is the beginning of an illness which would blight his health in later years and was a source of constant worry for Harriet. 1835 heralded another brief return to England as the Whig party were deposed from parliament and this time it is clear in Harriet’s letters that she was hoping and expecting this change to be permanent, ‘we think of setting out the end of next week, to be in London about the 15th […] We are very well and very eager. I will delight in the thoughts of London. It will be to me a pleasant city. No assemblies, balls, operas, but dinners and reunions at my friends.’18 Sadly for Harriet she was about to realise one of the problems of being a key politician’s wife, and just four months later with the resignation of Sir Robert Peel and the reinstating of the Whig party, the family were again returned to Paris.19 By this time Harriet and Granville were 50 and 62 respectively and so it is understandable that by this time they were both tired of the transient lifestyle and were starting to look forward to a permanent return to England and a more settled, quieter life.
In 1836, Granville had a significant fall from his horse and whilst details were not given in any of her letters, Harriet was clearly shocked by the event as she wrote the following to her sister:
Granville fell from his horse on Monday, but most happily was not hurt, though he felt a little shook by it. But how one does think, upon such occasions, of all that one is spared, of the mercies one ceases to dwell upon. The terror one magnifies and amplifies that are not permitted to be realised and it seems to me that life ought to be spent on our knees, and, how is it? Carelessly, ungratefully.20
Granville appeared unhurt as a result of his fall, more shaken than hurt, but it signalled a change in his health and the years 1839–41 were also to be difficult years politically for Granville in his role at the embassy. English–French relations were tested during the Second Egyptian-Ottoman War, when they differed in terms of their response to the situation.21 Granville was heavily involved in the negotiations to try and maintain peace between England and France, and as such was under a lot of strain for a prolonged period of time. His son Frederick recalls in his memoirs,
My legal studies were soon interrupted by my being summoned to Paris, where my father had been struck down with paralysis [he had had a severe stroke]. I believe this was the result of the anxiety he went through during the previous Autumn. England and France were on the verge of war on the Mehmet Ali question, and it was largely owing to my father that peace was maintained. But the strain put upon him was great, and undermined his health. He gradually somewhat recovered but for the rest of his life remained an invalid.22
As a result of the major stroke Granville suffered in the early Spring of 1841, he was forced to hand in his resignation, finally relinquishing the post of ambassador. From this time until early 1845 the family, which included Georgiana and Alexander Fullerton and their children, as well as George Stewart who acted as Granville’s private secretary, travelled around the continent, hoping that the warmer air and mineral waters would help Granville in his recovery.
By April 1844 the family were finally settled back in London where Granville convalesced and the best medical attention was given to him. In October 1845, he suffered yet another stroke and this time the family were summoned and on 8 January 1846, he passed away. Harriet wrote the last letter that she would write for many years to her brother Hart saying, ‘I feel linked to you by a strong tie – you understand the utter and hopeless breaking of my heart.’23
Harriet was utterly devastated by the loss of her husband and she retreated almost into hiding at her brother’s house at Chiswick [see plate 28.]. She lived there with her son Frederick and her grandson whom gave her what little pleasure she could derive from the world. Apart from her family, she saw no one and lived out the remainder of her life at Chiswick.
Tragedy relates to loss and if we think of loss, then death was not the only tragedy which occurred in this period. Whilst I have talked a lot in previous chapters about the development and rebuild of Belvoir Castle which Elizabeth worked so hard to improve, tragedy of an architectural type occurred on 26 October 1816 when the castle suffered a devastating fire.
The blaze appears to have started in a workshop within the castle where tools and supplies used in the renovations of the castle were stored. Several newly renovated parts of the castle were completely destroyed by the blaze (the north-east and north-west wings), the new entrance hall, which was just being finished, the Grand Staircase (which disintegrated in the furnace) and the new Picture Gallery. Legend has it that it was only the immediate bricking-up of the entrance to the Regent’s Gallery that prevented the inferno from spreading further (‘the gold plate melted in the Chapel and every pane of glass was broken’).24 Some of the artwork was thrown from windows in an attempt to save them, however many pieces were lost from artist such as Rubens, Titian and Reynolds, and some pieces of furniture were thrown from the windows in the panic, ruining them. The present duchess Emma, talks of family legend stating that valuable pieces, looted during the fire, were discovered generations later gracing the homes of neighbours and tenants.
Costs were estimated at £120,000 and over 115 pictures were lost, but by far the largest risk whilst the fire raged through the building was to the duke and duchess’s five children who were asleep in the Castle whilst the duke and duchess visited their other property Chevely Park. The children were rescued by Sir John Thoroton, the family chaplain and advisor, an act for which Elizabeth would feel forever in his debt. She wrote to him shortly after the event,
my poor Dear Sir John, I have felt for you more than I am able to express, in the late dreadful and lamentable event, and I assure you I feel so very grateful for the great care you took of my poor dear children, and altho’ I cannot help regretting the loss of the pictures, and the beautiful Picture Gallery, all that appears nothing in comparison25
An investigation was launched to find the cause of the fire, and the current duchess states that it ‘was always assumed, although never proven, to have been an arson attack by Luddites – protestors about labour reducing technology in the textile trade.’26
Luddites is a term used to describe a group of textile workers, usually from the Midlands and Yorkshire, who rebelled against the introduction of new machinery to the textile trade and within mills which increased productivity and drove the development of the industrial revolution. These skilled men found that through new machinery and practices, their skills and trade were threatened. Many of them were piece makers who would manufacture items at home on their own machinery and were paid by the piece. These highly skilled men were increasingly being replaced by machinery and by cheaper labour, procured through the availability of labourers put out of work by the Enclosures. By 1811, following unsuccessful petitions to parliament, many became desperate and machine breaking became a demonstrable way for these men to fight back against the establishment. Thousands of men participated in night-time raids where sledgehammers were used to break the machinery. The atmosphere of secrecy meant that it was hard for the authorities to arrest those involved, however with the introduction of the Frame Breakers Act in 1812, the penalty for breaking any machinery was death. ‘In 1813 seventeen machine-breakers were publicly executed at York,’27 resulting in a reduction in organised Luddite activity as the penalty became too high for many to risk.
It was never confirmed whether the fire at Belvoir Castle was an act of arson, and coming over three years after the height of the Luddite rebellions, and given that the duke was not a mill owner, it is unlikely that this was the case. Nevertheless, the event certainly was a tragedy for Elizabeth who, whilst relieved her children were safe, was deeply affected by the loss of all her hard work. She spent the remainder of her life working to reverse the effects of the fire and to place her (beloved by that time) Belvoir Castle back at the pinnacle of architectural style.
One of the remarkable things about tragedy is the human ability to overcome it. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, and some people sadly never get over tragedy and it leads them to ending their own lives, as we see with Justinian Vere, Mary’s eldest son, or leads them to a life as a recluse, as we see with Harriet after the death of Granville; however, for most people, whilst a tragedy can never be forgotten, it can be managed and that is what we see here with these women. They suffer tragedies in their lives, sometimes many times, and still are able to continue their day-today tasks and even continue to great success. Elizabeth managed to rebuild Belvoir Castle after the fire and throughout the losses of her children, and Mary Isham continued to work on the development of Lamport Hall and to support her only surviving child to take over as baronet of the estate despite having lost a daughter, husband and son. To say these women were unaffected by tragedy would be an insult to their personalities and the hard work they put into their lives, but they did manage to shoulder the emotional burden of tragedy and to live alongside it.