Mrs Edward O'Brien
(1815-1908)
27 June 1861

Volume 4, page 146, sitting number 4656.

Identified as 'Mrs Edward O'Brien' in the Silvy daybooks at the National Portrait Gallery, and as 'Louisa S. O'Brien' in the album in which the portrait was found, this is probably Louisa Susan O'Brien née Dawson.

Born on 6 March 1815, Louisa Susan Dawson was the fifth daughter of James Huwitt Massey Dawson, the Member of Parliament for County Limerick. She was baptised on 1 April 1815 at St Marylebone. 

On 15 August 1839 she was married at St Peter's Church in Dublin to Edward O'Brien, third son of Sir Edward O'Brien, 4th Baronet, of Dromoland, County Clare. The ceremony was performed by the groom's brother, Reverend Henry O'Brien (Limerick Chronicle, 21 August 1839).

Her husband died the following year on 19 May 1840. His death was announced in the Clare Journal (25 May 1840): 'On Monday last, near Leeds, after a short illness, to the deep afflication of his good and respected mother, the Dowager Lady O'Brien, Edward O'Brien, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, third son of the late Sir Edward O'Brien [...] leaving a young and amiable widow in peculiarly interesting and delicate situation, to lament the loss of a most affectionate husband, so unexpectedly taken from her arms, in the prime of life, by the hand of that omnipotent Providence, to whose decrees we should all submit without murmur or repining. Mr O'Brien and his disconsolate partner were only nine months united in the bonds of wedlock.' A son, Edward Arthur O'Brien, was born posthumously in Dublin on 1 September 1840. 

Mrs O'Brien appears on the 1861 census, a 46-year-old widow living with her son, Edward A. O’Brien, at Westfield Lodge, Portsmouth Road, Kingston-upon-Thames. She gave her profession as 'Fundholder.' She reappears on the 1871 census visiting a friend, Elizabeth Brooke, at 4 Royal Crescent, Bath.

Louisa Susan O'Brien died, aged 93, on 29 March 1908 at Kincora Lodge, Carew Road, Eastbourne. Her effects were valued at 'nil.'

[From an album compiled by Gertrude Frances Vesey of Long Ditton, Surrey. The daughter of George and Harriet Vesey, she was baptised at Long Ditton on 4 July 1842. She was 18 years old when she began to compile the album. She lived at home with her parents for many years, until on 23 November 1876, at the age of 34, she became the second wife of the 58-year-old Reverend John William Hawtrey (1818-1891). She appears on the 1881 census living at St Michael’s School, Langley Marish, Buckinghamshire, where her husband was the headmaster 'without the cure of souls.' The couple had a three-year-old daughter called Gabrielle and a nine-month-old son called Guy.]