WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS 1844–1906 BY ELIZABETH LEE AUTHOR OF “OUIDA: A MEMOIR” ETC. WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY Mrs. C. F. G. MASTERMAN London NISBET & CO. LIMITED 22 BERNERS STREET, W. 1 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN...

My most cordial thanks are due to Mrs. Drew for permission to print the extracts from Mrs. Gladstone’s manuscript diary, and to reproduce the portrait which forms the frontispiece to this book; to Mr. Wilfrid W. Ashley, who most kindly invited me to Broadlands and gave me permission to print extracts from some of the letters of Lady Palmerston in his possession; to Lady Battersea for a similar permission in regard to letters from Mrs. Disraeli; and to the Hon. George Peel for information about L

Few, we take it, would deny the influence that women, through the ages, have wielded in political life. Kings and potentates, Ministers of State and priests, have been guided by their counsels. Although such influence was indirect, it was nevertheless powerful, and produced both good and bad results. The published and unpublished diaries and letters of women of high position in the nineteenth century show their deep interest in political matters and their large knowledge of affairs from the insi

“A creature of caprice and impulse and whim, her manner, her talk, her character shifted their colours as rapidly as those of a chameleon.” Lady Caroline Ponsonby , daughter of the third Lord Bessborough, was born on 13th November 1785. When she was three years old, her mother, a daughter of the first Earl Spencer and sister of the famous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, fell ill and was ordered to Italy. She took the little girl with her, but being obliged to return to England herself, as her

Julia Floyd , the third child and second daughter of General Sir John Floyd, Bart., K.B., was born in India, on 19th November 1795. Her father had a distinguished military career and came of a family of soldiers.—Documentary evidence points to a certain Thomas Floyd as an ancestor of the family who obtained a commission in the 1st Dragoon Guards in 1680. His son John became a captain in the same regiment and was present at the battle of Minden on 1st August 1759, and died on duty in Germany in t

“A wife with all those qualities, virtues, and graces which not only adorn life, but make life worth living.” Frances Anna Maria Elliot , the second daughter of the second Earl of Minto, was born at Minto House, Roxburghshire, on 15th November 1815. Her mother was Mary, eldest daughter of Patrick Brydone. Lady Fanny, as she was generally known before her marriage, was one of a family of ten, five boys and five girls. She had the education usual at the time for English girls in her position. She

“Full of vivacity, she surprises and interests; she finds her chief pleasure in conversing with persons of worth and reputation, and this not so much to be known to them, as to know them.” Lady Palmerston was one of the favourites of fortune. Born of a distinguished family, sister of one Prime Minister and wife of another, the trusted confidante of both, endowed by nature with beauty and charm, with keen intelligence and sprightly wit, she was a queen of society from eighteen to eighty, and for

“It is the spirit of man that says, ‘I will be great,’ but it is the sympathy of woman that usually makes him so.” The parents of Mary Anne Evans lived at Bramford Speke, near Exeter. Their daughter was probably born at Exeter, where we know she was baptized on 14th November. Her father, John Evans, a lieutenant in the Navy who had worked his way up from the bottom of the Service, died on active service while his daughter was an infant. His wife was Eleanor Viney, a member of a family of good po

Catherine, elder daughter and third child of Sir Stephen Glynne, eighth Baronet, by his wife, Mary Neville, daughter of the second Lord Braybrooke, was born at Hawarden Castle, Flintshire, on 6th January 1812. Lady Glynne was a granddaughter of George Grenville—Sir Richard Grenville of the Revenge was a member of this family—the Minister whose Government was responsible for the “Stamp Act” (1763), which led to the loss of the American Colonies, and niece of Lord Grenville, Prime Minister in 1806

Although the greater part of Mrs. Gladstone’s time was given to the care of her husband and of her children, and to the social duties entailed by her position, she found sufficient leisure during the period we have traversed to initiate and carry through philanthropic work of an important and useful kind, involving a large amount of actual personal service. She began by visiting the House of Charity in Soho, founded in 1846, to provide shelter for a few of those persons, not of the ordinary vagr

On 25th July 1889 Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone celebrated their golden wedding, completing fifty years of a married life in which they had abundantly realised “all the unclouded blessings of the home.” The year before, on entering their fiftieth year of married life, colleagues and personal friends presented them with their portraits, that of Mr. Gladstone painted by Holl and of his wife by Herkomer, and three massive silver cups. In thanking them Mr. Gladstone said that it was difficult for him to gi

Lord Salisbury was the last of Queen Victoria’s Prime Ministers, and she has left it on record that she thought him the ablest of them all. Lady Salisbury was Georgiana, daughter of Lord Alderson, Baron of the Exchequer. Lord Alderson was a man of great intellect, whose career, though honourable and useful, never quite fulfilled the expectations of his friends. At Cambridge University he was Senior Wrangler, Smith’s prizeman, and Senior Chancellor’s medallist, which is almost a unique record. Th

“The speaker in his remarks on the previous toast implied that it was a good sign of a mother to have a good son. But he thought there was another relationship in life in which there was a good deal of sympathy. They would always find where they had a good sort of fellow—they might depend upon it—he had a good wife. At all events, he pitied the man with any interest in public events or any public duty to discharge who, when he goes home, finds a wife who knows nothing and cares nothing about it.