It was remarkable the small quantity of food which it was at one time thought the right thing for ladies to take in public. I suppose from early habit, my mother, who was active both in body and mind, used to eat very little. At lunch she would divide a slice of meat with me. Although now the death, in her confinement, of the Princess Charlotte, “the people’s darling,” which plunged the nation in sorrow, is a thing only of history, yet it is on record how she almost implored for more food, the special desire being mutton chops. Though not in any way connected with the Royal Family, my mother held in memory the unhappy event from its consequences. Sir Richard Croft, whose medical attentions had been so inefficient to the Princess, was shortly after called to attend in a similar capacity on Mrs. Thackeray, wife of Dr. Thackeray, then or after Provost of King’s College, Cambridge. For some reason or other he left his patient for a while, and the story went that, finding pistols in the room where he was resting, he shot himself. Miss Cotton—Mrs. Thackeray’s sister—was a friend of my mother. Miss Thackeray, the infant who was ushered into the world by the death of both her mother and the doctor, survived, and in her young-lady days was particularly fond of dancing; and I have the remembrance of my first London ball being at her aunt’s house.
PLATE I. SEDBURY PARK HOUSE AND GROUNDS, DISTANT VIEW. ]
MANSION HOUSE, SEDBURY PARK; MISS GEORGIANA ORMEROD ON THE LEFT, MISS ELEANOR ORMEROD ON THE RIGHT. (_pp. 14, 48._) ]
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The situation of Sedbury (plate I.), rising to an elevation of about 170 feet between the Severn and the Wye, opposite Chepstow, was very beautiful, and the vegetation rich and luxuriant. My father purchased the house and policy grounds from Sir Henry Cosby about 1826, and it was our home till his death in 1873. He retained Tyldesley, his other property in Lancashire, with its coal mines, but we did not reside there, as the climate was too cold for the health of my mother and for the young family.
[The original purchase was called Barnesville, and earlier still Kingston Park, and it consisted of a moderate-sized villa with the immediately adjoining grounds. The property was added to by purchases from the Duke of Beaufort, and it was renamed Sedbury Park after the nearest village. To the house the new owner added a handsome colonnade about 10 feet wide, and a spacious library. Sir Robert Smirke, the architect of all the improvements, was the man who designed the British Museum, the General Post Office, &c.[3] Barnes Cottage on the property, at one time ‘Barons Cottage,’ was kept in habitable repair because it secured to the estate the privilege of a seat in church.]