Georgina Weldon
Georgina Weldon
The Fearless Life of a Victorian Celebrity
Joanna Martin
THE BOYDELL PRESS
Joanna Martin 2021
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner
The right of Joanna Martin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published 2021
The Boydell Press, Woodbridge
ISBN 978 1 78327 582 3 hardback
ISBN 978 1 80010 084 8 ePub
The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
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website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate
Front cover: Georgina Weldon in 1879. Cabinet card by Debenham of Regent Street. Georgina is wearing the silver medal of the Parisian Socit dEncouragement au Bien. Back cover: Georgina Weldon on the cover of Social Salvation, December 1884, from an engraving by George Sanford.
The British Library Board, LOU.LON68 December 1884.
Cross references refer to page numbers in the print edition
For my goddaughter Georgina Treherne
Illustrations
All illustrations belong to the Treherne family, unless otherwise stated
1. Pedigree of the Thomas/Treherne family
2. The Thomas family at the Villa Capponi, c.18478
3. Villa Capponi, c.1850
4. Schloss Hard, 1853
5. Georgina in Brussels, 1856
6. Georginas admirers in Brussels, 1856
7. Gate House, Mayfield, 1861
8. Georgina in 1857 by J.R. Parsons
9. 2 Tros-yr-Afon, Beaumaris
10. Georgina and Harry Weldon in 1861
11. The Treherne family at Gate House, Mayfield, 1861
12. A page from Georginas diary, March 1871
13. Tavistock House, c.1900
14. Georgina and Gounod in Brussels, 1872 ( Tim Lindholm and Lucy Gaylord-Lindholm)
15. The advertisement cart, 1872
16. Georgina, Gounod and pupils at Tavistock House, 1874
17. Children in the garden at Tavistock House, 1876
18. Georgina in 1879
19. Admission ticket for one of Georginas At Homes, 1879
20. Chamber of Horrors, cartoon 1879
21. Georgina in her stage prison costume, 1880
22. Cartoon of Georgina and John Jaffray, 1883
23. Portrait of Georgina by Thobald Chartran, 1883
24. Spy cartoon of Georgina, 1884
25. Georgina in costume as Sergeant Buzfuz, 1884
26. Cartoon of Georgina with Jules Rivire, 1884
27. Georgina Weldon and Angle Mnier in fancy dress, 1887
28. Pears Soap advertisement, 1887
29. Gisors, 1911
30. The garden of the hospice at Gisors, 1893
31. Georgina and Judge at Gisors, 1893
Acknowledgements
The completion of this book is the fulfilment of a promise made many years ago to my mother, Oona Methuen-Campbell (ne Treherne) and her first cousin Geoffrey Treherne. Unfortunately, neither of them lived long enough to see it published. Other members of the family have also helped and encouraged me over the years, most notably the late Robert Treherne, my sister Catherine Benjamin, Franco da Conturbia, and my goddaughter Georgina Treherne.
I would also like to acknowledge, with gratitude, the help and interest of the following: Charles Brett, Niccol Capponi, Charles Frankiss, Veronica Franklin Gould, Mike Hickox, Tim Lindholm, Fernando Mascarenhas (Palacio Fronteira, Lisbon), Camelia Miller (great-granddaughter of Charles Rawlings), Anne Monroe, Helen Nicholson, Marcus Risdell, Martin Sheppard, Patrick Treherne, Philip Ward-Jackson, Peter Watson, Christopher Whittick, Thomas Woodcock (Garter King of Arms), and Robert Yorke; also Cristina Fantacci and Francesca Baldry, who showed me the Villa La Pietra, Florence.
I am particularly grateful to Martin Sheppard, the publisher of my last two books, who showed great patience in reading, and commenting on, the first (much longer) draft of this one. And finally, I could not have finished the book without the help and forbearance of my husband (and photographer) Edward Martin, who has lived with Georgina Weldon as well as me for so many years.
Abbreviations
AM: Angle Mnier
BL: British Library
DT: Dal[rymple] Treherne
ESRO: East Sussex Record Office, Brighton
GFW: George Frederick Watts
GW: Georgina Treherne (to 1860), then Weldon
JPR: Jules Prudence Rivire
LFT: Louisa Frances Treherne
PA: Percy Anderson
PCY: Probate Court, York
PMG: Pall Mall Gazette
POB: Proceedings of the Old Bailey
PPR: Principal Probate Registry
SC: Statement of Claim
TNA: The National Archives
WHW: William Henry Weldon
Newspapers and magazines
Daily News:London Daily News
Entracte: Entracte and Limelight
Standard: London Evening Standard
Times: The [London] Times, law reports
Published works by Georgina Weldon (see bibliography for further details)
GWL: French and British Law and Justice: England As It is: Is the Law An Honourable Profession? (1906)
GWM: Mmoires Weldon (1902) Quotations from this book have been translated from the original French.
GWO: My Orphanage and Gounod in England (1882)
SS: Social Salvation (18834)
Manuscript sources
GWJ: Georgina Weldons journals
GWMSM: Georgina Weldons manuscript memoirs
GWT: MS book beginning today is the 7th January 1870
Quotations from this book have been translated from the original French.
Georgina Weldons Archive and her Biographers
When Georgina Weldon died in 1914, she bequeathed all her papers to her friend Lise Gray, fearing that they would be burnt if she left them to her relations. There were hundreds of letters, together with manuscript memoirs, records of her innumerable lawsuits, and twenty-four journals, covering the years from 1852 to 1854, and from 1860 to 1913. Georgina had also published numerous articles, pamphlets and books, together with six volumes of Mmoires Weldon in reality a chaotic compilation of transcripts of letters and legal papers, interspersed with autobiography, all translated into French. In fact all her published works were largely autobiograpical.
The first book about Georgina was A Plaintiff in Person, which was written by her nephew Philip Treherne and published posthumously in 1923. Treherne, who was born in 1872, first visited Georgina in 1893, and he saw her often after that. His biography is uncritical, and he is at his best when recounting his personal reminiscences of his notorious aunt, especially during her latter years.
Lise Gray died in 1923 and her niece, Marjory Pegram, inherited sixty-five packing cases full of Georginas books and papers, which had remained in a furniture repository in Brighton since Georginas death. It was, as she wrote, an awe-inspiring sight. Miss Pegram then spent many years sorting and arranging the archive. She must have thrown a large proportion of the contents of the packing cases away, but much still remained. In the 1950s, she commissioned Edward Grierson to write a new biography. Grierson, a barrister and prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction, was born a few weeks after Georginas death. His book,
