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Harriet Tyrwhitt, 12th Baroness Berners

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The Lady Berners
Born
Emma Harriet Wilson

(1835-11-18)18 November 1835
Died18 August 1917(1917-08-18) (aged 81)
Spouse
(m. 1853; died 1894)
Children12
Parent(s)Hon. Robert Wilson
Harriet Crump Sheppard
RelativesEdward Knollys, 2nd Viscount Knollys (grandson)
Gerald Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners (grandson)
Vashon James Wheeler (grandson)

Emma Harriet Tyrwhitt, 12th Baroness Berners (18 November 1835 – 18 August 1917) was a suo jure Baroness in the Peerage of England.

Early life

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Portrait of her grandfather, the 10th Baron Berners, by Robert Scott Tait, 1841

Harriet was born on 18 November 1835. She was the daughter of the Rev. Hon. Robert Wilson (1801–1850) and his second wife (and cousin), Harriet (née Crump) Sheppard. Her father served as Rector of Ashwellthorpe. His father's first wife was Emma Pigott, a daughter of Col. Piggott of Doddershall Park, and her mother's first husband was John Sheppard. She had an elder brother, Harry William Piggott Wilson, who died in 1853. After her father's death in 1850, her mother married Very Rev. Edward Hoare, Dean of Waterford.[1]

Her paternal grandparents were Henry Wilson, 10th Baron Berners and the former Elizabeth Sumpter (a daughter of Thomas Sumpter, of Histon Hall). Her mother was a daughter and co-heiress of Col. George Crump, of Allexton Hall and the former Mary Wilson (the third daughter of Henry William Wilson, of Didlington Hall and Ashwellthorpe Hall, who was a sister of the 9th and 10th Barons Berners).[1]

Peerage

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On 27 June 1871, she succeeded her uncle Henry, who had served as the President of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1858,[2] as the 12th Baroness Berners, a title created in 1455 for her ancestor, John Bourchier (the fourth son of William Bourchier, 1st Count of Eu).[3] Upon inheriting the title, she became the third suo jure Baroness Berners after Jane Knyvett, 3rd Baroness Berners (d. 1562) and Katherine Bokenham, 8th Baroness Berners (d. 1743).[2]

Lady Berners was known to be "extremely religious", holding household prayer services for her staff, and "violently low-church," describing herself in Who's Who as "distinctly low".[4]

Personal life

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Caricature of her eldest son, the Hon. Harry Tyrwhitt-Wilson, by "Spy" (Sir Leslie Ward) in Vanity Fair, 1886

On 3 November 1853, Harriet married Sir Henry Tyrwhitt, 3rd Baronet of Stanley Hall, at St. Michael's, Pimlico. Sir Henry, a Lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade, was the son of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt-Jones, 2nd Baronet (son of Thomas Tyrwhitt Jones, MP) and Eliza Walwyn Macnamara (the youngest daughter of John Macnamara, of Saint Kitts, West Indies).[1] Together, they were the parents of nine sons and three daughters:[1]

In a autobiography, a descendant referred to her appearance as "not unlike Holbein's portrait of Bloody Mary with just a touch of Charley's Aunt."[4]

Lady Berners died at Ashwellthorpe, Norwich on 18 August 1917.[13] As her eldest son predeceased her, the barony passed to her second son, Sir Raymond,[3] who had already inherited the Tyrwhitt baronetcy upon her husband's death in 1894.[2]

Descendants

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Through her third son Hugh, she was a grandmother to Gerald Tyrwhitt-Wilson, better known as Lord Berners, the composer, novelist, painter, and aesthete,[4][14] upon whose death her husband's baronetcy became extinct. The barony, however, passed to her granddaughter, Vera,[15] the eldest child of her fifth son, Rupert.[2]

Through her daughter Arden, she was a grandmother to Edward Knollys, 2nd Viscount Knollys, the Governor of Bermuda.[1]

Through her daughter Sybil, she was a grandmother to Wing Commander Vashon James Wheeler, a British Army and Royal Air Force officer who served as an infantry officer in both the First World War and the North Russia intervention, and then as a fighter and bomber pilot in the Second World War.[16]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003, volume 1, pps. 355-356.
  2. ^ a b c d G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume XII/2, page 560; volume II, page 158.
  3. ^ a b c Marquise de Fontenoy (3 Oct 1918). "Intimate Gossip of Courts of Europe". The Buffalo News. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  4. ^ a b c Allen, Brooke (6 December 1998). "Without Peer". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  5. ^ "DEATH OF THE HON. HARRY TYRWHITT-WILSON". Leicester Chronicle or Commercial and Leicestershire Mercury. 15 Apr 1891. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  6. ^ Depew, Chauncey M. (20 October 2013). Titled Americans, 1890: A list of American ladies who have married foreigners of rank. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 370. ISBN 978-1-78366-005-6. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  7. ^ Obituary: Captain Tyrwhitt, R.N., The Times, 1 November 1907.
  8. ^ "DEATH OF HON. HUGH TYRWHITT". Ashbourne News Telegraph. 8 Nov 1907. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  9. ^ Perkins, M. (1905). History of Dudley Banks, Bankers and Bank Notes. E. Blockside. p. 108. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  10. ^ Hammond, Peter W., editor, The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times, Volume XIV: Addenda & Corrigenda (Stroud, Gloucestershire, U.K.: Sutton Publishing, 1998), page 89.
  11. ^ Fasti Wyndesorienses, May 1950. S.L. Ollard. Published by the Dean and Canons of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
  12. ^ "PICTURES BEQUEST. Hon. H. E. Tyrwhitt's Will". Evening Express. 23 June 1949. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  13. ^ "OBITUARY. BARONESS BERNERS". The Daily Telegraph. 21 Aug 1917. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  14. ^ Seymour, Miranda (24 April 2015). "'The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother and Me,' by Sofka Zinovieff". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  15. ^ "WOMAN SUCCEEDS TO PEERAGE. BARONESS BERNERS". The Daily Telegraph. 21 April 1950. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
  16. ^ "Wing Commander Vashon James Wheeler | War Casualty Details 2103484". www.cwgc.org. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
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Peerage of England
Preceded by Baroness Berners
1871–1917
Succeeded by