2018
—
Year of Women's Empowerment.
We are not quite there
yet after decades of struggle and consciousness-raising. With
the passage of years perhaps we
take some salutary, institutionalized changes for granted
... think
voting,
maternity
leave. All the more reason to take note of women's achievements,
women who lived in the shadows of even
more constricting social
conditions.
 |
Elizabeth Ilive,
'Mrs Wyndham' by Thomas Phillips, 1799, private collection of
Lord Egremont.
|
First of all,
Elizabeth had been his mistress for some fifteen years;
Secondly, she had
already been living with him at his Petworth estate in Sussex and had
borne him seven children at that point;
Thirdly, Elizabeth
left the Earl and her established life at Petworth permanently just
two years after the marriage took place.
It was not unusual
that the Earl would have a mistress of a lower-class status; keeping
a mistress, or a series of them, was then commonplace in aristocratic
circles. George Wyndham was no exception; he shared one of his
mistresses with his friend the Prince of Wales. Nonetheless, it was
quite unusual to marry one of them. Despite his long
commitment to Elizabeth, the Earl carried on other liaisons that
eventually may have caused the estrangement.
Little seemed known
about Elizabeth Ilive other than she clearly was not of the
upper-class mould. Rumours of her humble origins swirled. As "Mrs
Wyndham" of Petworth House during her considerable tenure,
Elizabeth apparently fulfilled her family and household duties but
went far beyond the norm into agricultural interests and artistic
patronage. Her husband did not always approve.
Who was this woman?
This woman who received a silver medal from the Royal Society for the
encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce for her technological
invention? Whose scientific curiosity led to potato cultivation? Whom
William Blake, that visionary poet and artist, described as a "Mighty
soul in Beauty's form"?
 |
A portion of The
Egremont Family by George Romney, private collection of Lord
Egremont
|
Historian Sheila
Haines, lead researcher on the Petworth Emigration Project, became
interested in Elizabeth as one of its peripheral, obscure figures.
After Sheila's untimely death, her inspired colleagues took up the
research: gleaning contemporary accounts, hunting down countless
records (with access to Petworth House Archives), finding collateral
descendants, revealing a woman almost forgotten by her own family.
Elizabeth's origins and ancestors are no longer opaque. Years of hard
work were turned into a remarkable book that uncovers more of
Elizabeth's character and relationships (and no, the 3rd Earl has not
been ignored!).
 |
Cover portrait for
the book Elizabeth Ilive, Egremont's Countess is by Thomas
Phillips, Elizabeth Ilive in a blue and white turban,
courtesy of The National Trust.
|
The National Trust
is currently holding an exhibit at Petworth House: "Elizabeth
Ilive: A Woman Ahead of her Time." Without the details and
guidance provided by the book, the exhibit could not have been so
thorough. The book, itself a significant achievement thanks to
Haines, Lawson, and McCann, is available at Waterstones book store
only in the UK. Interested North Americans can purchase through the
authors: leighalisonlawson (at) gmail.com.
 |
Petworth
House: western facade.
cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Francois Thomas - geograph.org.uk/p/428734 labelled for reuse under Creative Commons license. |
From long before the
Suffragettes to the "Time's Up" movement, women's stories
are being told.
©
2018
Brenda Dougall Merriman
