Miss Ker Seymer
(1841-1921)
7 March 1861

Volume 2, page 274, sitting number 2386.

[This was Miss Ker Seymer's second visit to the studio; she had already sat for Silvy shortly after his arrival in London. She is one of the first sitters to appear in volume one of the Silvy daybooks. On both occasions she was accompanied by Miss Blanche Malet.]

Miss Gertrude Ker Seymer was born in 1842 at Hanford in Dorset, the daughter of politician Henry Ker Seymer (1807-1864), the Member of Parliament for the County of Dorset. Mr Ker Seymer was also a visitor to Silvy's studio, as were his wife and even his dog.

On 21 April 1864 at St George's Hanover Square Gertrude Ker Seymer married Harry Ernest Clay (1832-1896). The following year her husband assumed the additional surnames Ker and Seymer by Royal Licence in compliance with the terms of the will of Gertrude's father, Henry Ker Seymer.

She and her husband appear on the 1871 census living at 25 Montagu Square, Marylebone, the home of Ernest's father James Clay, who was the Member of Parliament for Hull from 1847 to 1873. According to the census, Ernest was a Deputy-Lieutenant and a Justice of the Peace. He had previously worked under Lord Lyons with the diplomatic service in Washington; he had also been a second secretary at the embassy in Paris and a first secretary at the legation in Bern. He died in 1899.

Mrs Ker Seymer was a friend of Arthur Sulllivan, who often stayed at her home at Hanford in Dorset. It was there that he wrote the tune St Gertrude, to which the hymn 'Onward Christian Soldiers' is usually sung, naming it in gratitude for his host's hospitality.

In 1901 Gertrude was a widow living at 178 Cromwell Road with a Belgian butler, a German lady's maid, a French cook and an Austrian housemaid.

Mrs Gertrude Clay Ker Seymer died, aged 78, on 14 November 1921 in 14 Dorset Square, Marylebone. She left effects valued at £1115.