Edith Rawdon-Hastings, 10th Countess of Loudoun
Edith Maud Rawdon-Hastings, 10th Countess of Loudoun (10 December 1833 – 23 January 1874) was a Scottish peer. She died aged 40 after caring for Rowallan Castle. Sir George Gilbert Scott designed an Eleanor Cross style monument to her which was erected in Ashby de la Zouch.
The Countess of Loudoun | |
|---|---|
| 10th Countess of Loudoun | |
 The Countess in 1861 | |
| Predecessor | Henry Rawdon-Hastings, 9th Earl of Loudoun |
| Successor | Charles Clifton, 11th Earl of Loudoun |
| Born | Lady Edith Maud Rawdon-Hastings 10 December 1833 |
| Died | 23 January 1874 (aged 40) |
| Spouse(s) |
Charles Clifton, 1st Baron Donington
(after 1853) |
| Issue |
|
| Parents | George Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Marquess of Hastings Barbara Yelverton, 20th Baroness Grey de Ruthyn |
Early life
edit
Rawdon-Hastings was the second child and eldest daughter of George Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Marquess of Hastings, the British peer and courtier, and his wife Barbara née Yelverton, 20th Baroness Grey de Ruthyn.[1] Her elder brother was Paulyn Rawdon-Hastings, 3rd Marquess of Hastings, who died unmarried. Among her younger siblings were Lady Bertha Rawdon-Hastings (wife of Augustus Wykeham Clifton), Lady Victoria Rawdon-Hastings, Henry Rawdon-Hastings (who married Lady Florence Paget, daughter of Henry Paget, 2nd Marquess of Anglesey), and Lady Frances Rawdon-Hastings (wife of Charles Marsham, 4th Earl of Romney). Fifteen months after her father's death in 1844, her mother married Capt. Hastings Henry, nephew of the Duke of Leinster, who took took the name of Yelverton by royal license in 1849. From her mother's second marriage, she had a younger half-sister, Hon. Barbara Yelverton, who later married John Yarde-Buller, 2nd Baron Churston.[2]
His mother, who inherited the barony when only seven months old, was the only child of Henry Yelverton, 19th Baron Grey de Ruthyn (a friend of Lord Byron)[3] and the former Anna Maria Kellam. Her paternal grandparents were Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings and his wife, Flora Mure-Campbell, 6th Countess of Loudoun.[2]
Career
editShe was greatly attached to the old Mure family mansion of Rowallan Castle near Kilmaurs in Ayrshire, and funded restorations of it.[4]
In 1866, Rawdon-Hastings drew a picture which she called "Skeleton Ball". This picture is now in the Tate.[5]
Personal life
editOn 30 April 1853, she married Charles Clifton. The couple took the surname of Abney-Hastings, as a condition of inheriting from a second cousin Sir Charles Abney-Hastings, 2nd Bt, a natural grandson of the 10th Earl of Huntingdon (brother of Lady Edith's grandmother).[6], [7]. They had six children:[2]
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- Lady Flora Paulyna Hetty Barbara Abney Hastings (1854–1887), who married Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk.[2]
- Charles Edward Hastings Clifton, 11th Earl of Loudoun (1855–1920), who married the Hon. Alice Fitzalan-Howard, daughter of Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Glossop (himself the second son of Henry Howard, 13th Duke of Norfolk), in 1880.[2]
- Hon. Paulyn Francis Cuthbert Rawdon-Hastings (1856–1907), a Major who married Lady Maud Grimston, daughter of James Grimston, 2nd Earl of Verulam, whose children include Edith Abney-Hastings, 12th Countess of Loudoun.[2]
- Gilbert Theophilus Clifton Clifton-Hastings-Campbell, 3rd Baron Donington (1859–1927), who married Maud Kemble Hamilton, daughter of Sir Charles Hamilton, 1st Baronet.[2]
- Hon. Henry Cecil Plantagenet Clifton (b. 1860), who married Maharaja Duleep Singh's companion and was subsequently ostracised when the party went in exile.[2]
- Lady Egidia Sophia Frederica Christina Clifton (1870–1892), who died young.[2]
Edith died on 23 January 1874 and was buried in the churchyard at Castle Donington, except for her right hand, which – at her own request – was buried in the parkland of her home at Donington Hall.[8] After she died, the Loudoun monument was erected in Ashby. The octagonal monument by Sir George Gilbert Scott is based on the Eleanor crosses and is now a Grade II* listed structure.[9][10] After Edith's death, her widowed husband was created Baron Donington.
Descendants
editThrough her son Paulyn, she was a grandmother of Edith Abney-Hastings, later 12th Countess of Loudoun.[2]
Through her son Gilbert, she was a grandmother of four granddaughters, including Hon. Selina Clifton-Hastings-Campbell, who married Sir Edward McTaggart-Stewart, 2nd Baronet.[2]
References
edit- ^ "General history: Principal gentry seats, forests and deer-parks Pages clxvii-clxx Magna Britannia: Volume 5, Derbyshire. Originally published by T Cadell and W Davies, London, 1817". British History Online. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Pine, Leslie Gilbert (1973). The New Extinct Peerage, 1884-1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant & Suspended Peerages with Genealogies and Arms. Genealogical Publishing Company. p. 138. ISBN 978-0-8063-0521-9. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
- ^ Collected Letters of Lord Byron
- ^ Adamson, Archibald R. (1875), Rambles Round Kilmarnock. Pub. T. Stevenson, Kilmarnock. p. 150.
- ^ Tate. "Edith Maud Rawdon-Hastings, Countess of Loudoun 1833-1874 | Tate". Tate. Retrieved 7 October 2018.
- ^ The Gentleman's Magazine. F. Jefferies. 1858.
- ^ Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. Burke's Peerage Limited. 1848. p. 489. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
- ^ "THE COUNTESS' CROSS, Castle Donington - 1361332 | Historic England". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 31 December 2023.
- ^ Historic England. "Loudoun Monument (Grade II*) (1073662)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
- ^ Stuff, Good. "Loudoun Monument, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire". britishlistedbuildings.co.uk. Retrieved 8 October 2018.