Marchioness of Ailesbury
(1809-1893)
Volume 1, page 72, sitting number 490.
[No illustration appears with this entry in the Silvy daybooks].
Born Maria Elizabeth Tollemache on 27 October 1809, she was the youngest daughter of the Honourable Charles Tollemache and Gertrude Florinda née Gardiner.
On 20 August 1833 at Ham House at Petersham in Surrey, she married Sir Charles Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Marquess of Ailesbury, son of Sir Thomas Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Earl of Ailesbury.
She died of pneumonia 'after a very short illness' at Ham House on 7 May 1893 at the age of 83, and was buried at Petersham in Surrey.
According to her obituary in the Morning Post (8 May 1893), she was 'one of the most remarkable women in English society. She was the same age as Mr Gladstone, of whom she was an enthusiastic admirer and supporter. Like the Prime Minister, she possessed a most splendid constitution, and men now old can remember her in their boyhood many years their senior, and from that day to this never changing in aspect. The curls of the period of the Reform Bill were worn as freshly last week. The absolutely upright figure was never bent. The hands were full of play, the skin was fresh and unwrinkled. [...] In her long life she ever preserved the traditions and high manners of a bygone time. A great lady, moving in the best society, she has always given pleasure wherever she appeared. Her physical constitution was only matched by her intense goodness of heart, and by a nobillity of character which made Lady Ailesbury the most loyal of friends. [...] Those who treasure memories of great worth, of womanly tenderness of character, and of all the high qualities that best adorn the English lady will retain to the end of their lives the dear memory of Lady Ailesbury.
'Maria Marchioness of Ailesbury was the youngest daughter of the Hon. Charles Tollemache, and was born in 1809. She married, in 1833, as his second wife, the first Marquis of Ailesbury, who died in 1856. Lady Ailesbury had one son, Lord Charles William Brudenell Bruce, who was born in 1834, and represented North Wilts and Marlborough for many years in Parliament. He was Vice Chancellor to the Queen from 1880 to 1885. Lord Charles married, in 1860, Augusta Georgiana Sophia Seymour, a great grand-daughter of the first Marquis of Hartford.'