Four weddings and some Wolseley funerals: stories of marriage and divorce in a Staffordshire family

Wolseley Hall, destroyed in a serious fire in the early 1950s and demolished in 1966 … the ancestral home of the Wolseley family

Patrick Comerford

I have been writing in recent weeks about the divorce scandal in the Talbot and Chetwynd family that becoming a sensation far beyond polite social circles in Victorian Rugeley and Lichfield in the 1860s and filled column after column in newspapers across the world.

During my summer rambles through Stafford, Rugeley, Wolseley, Lichfield and Tamworth, I was reminded of some of these marriages and divorces, with stories that must have created gossip among people who saw themselves at the centre of social life in south Staffordshire 150 or 200 years ago.

William Henry Chetwynd (1811-1890) and his wife Blanche Mary Talbot (1836-1898), 25 years his junior and a niece Henry Chetwynd-Talbot, 18th Earl of Shrewsbury, were involved in a sensational divorce case in 1864-1865. The gossip created by the case of Chetwynd v Chetwynd echoed, in many ways, the attention a century earlier to the bigamy and divorce trials involving the widowed Sir William Wolseley (1692-1779) and the widowed Ann Whitbey (1724-1782), a case that dragged on in civil and church courts over two years, from 1752 to 1754.

But I was reminded too during those summer walks of at least four other marriages in the Wolseley family down through the generations that were interesting and colourful. They may not have created scandal in the same ways but, at times, they saved the Wolseley family from what seemed like certain financial and social ruin.

The coat-of-arms used by the Duques de Losada y Lousada … but were they really entitled to their titles? (Source)

1, The Jamaican planter: was he a Spanish duke?

Marianne Wolseley (1813-1881) of Wolseley and Count Francis Baruch Lousada (1813-1870), who was born into a rich family of sugar planters in Jamaica, were married in Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, London, on 25 November 1834. Marianne’s father, Sir Charles Wolseley (1769-1838), had succeeded as the seventh baronet in 1817 and was a radical politician who was at the storming of the Bastille in 1789 and was surety for some of the victims of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. He was jailed in 1820 for sedition and conspiracy, and his political activism threatened the financial stability of his family.

However, his daughter Marianne managed to avoid her own possible financial and social ruin in 1834 when she married Count Francis Baruch Lousada. The Baruch Lousada family in Jamaica commissioned a Spanish herald and genealogist to produce a set of lurid, expensive-looking but specious documents enabling them to claim they were the successors to the titles of the Duque de Losada.

Isaac Lousada (1783-1857) assumed the title of Duque de Losada in 1848, and after he died his eldest son, Emanuel de Lousada, lost little time in making himself known as the Duke de Losada y Lousada, drafting and fabricating a family tree for an entry in Burke’s Peerage.

It is a pointless genealogical exercise to explain his claimed link to the Spanish duke, and there is no logical way to trace how the dukes inherited – in Spain – a moribund Italian title that had been held by someone they were not related to. The creative, but nonetheless fictitious, explanations are found in the work of the Spanish herald and genealogist, the gullibility of the genealogical authorities in Spain and London, and the audacity of Emanuel.

The reward for the whole escapade and the social and political compensation for the expenses in pursuing this genealogical deception were many: Emanuel received a British passport in 1862; his brother Francis married into the minor ranks of the British nobility when he married Marianne Wolseley, wangled another title in the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and became a British diplomat in the US. Indeed, three further members of his immediate family went unchallenged in their use of the title of duke.

Another version of the coat-of-arms used by the Duque de Losada y Lousada … Marianne Wolseley was daughter-in-law of the first duke, sister-in-law of the second duke, and mother of the third and fourth dukes (Source)

In polite Victorian society, most people seem never to have queried the standing of the soi-disant dukes, overlooking their peculiar change of name, their use of a hybrid coat of arms and the lack of official authentication. Members of the Lousada family married into leading Sephardic families in England, including the Montefiore and Mocatta families.

Twelve years Marianne and Francis were married, Francis was given the title of Marchese de San Miniato by the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1846. It was said widely at the time that he paid for the title while Marianne was a lady-in-waiting in London to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany.

Francis Lousada was the British Consul in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and died in Boston in 1870. Marianne died on 1 November 1884 in Tarvis in Carinthia, Austria, now Tarvisio in Italy. Their eldest son, Horace Francis Lousada (1837-1905), succeeded his father as the second marchese and his uncle as the third duke. The fifth and last duke, Edward Eugene Lousada (1853-1941), returned to live in Jamaica.

The confirmation by Pope Leo XIII of Anita Murphy, later Lady Wolseley … a painting in the Villa Magistrale on the Aventine in Rome

2, the daughter of an American Papal ‘marchese’:

Marianne Wolseley’s marriage to this soi-disant marchese, and the titles used by her children create a story with many parallels in that of the marriage almost 30 years later in 1883 of her nephew, Sir Charles Wolseley (1846-1931), the ninth baronet, and Anita Murphy, the daughter of an Irish-American magnate, Daniel T Murphy, who bought the title of marchese from the Pope.

Sir Charles Wolseley may have found a role model or inspiration in his aunt Marianne, for he married into a wealthy family with a title that had been bought and in the hope of rescuing lost fortunes and social status.

Esther (née Chichester) Grehan wrote from London in 1882 to her husband in Dublin, Stephen Grehan (1859-1937), describing how Charles came to London to look for an heiress. My interest is added to by Stephen’s descent through his mother from the Langton and Comerford families of Danganmore Castle, Co Kilkenny. In her letters, laden with snobbery, elitism and disdain, Esther describes how Charles was introduced to two Irish-American Murphy sisters from San Francisco, who were ‘vulgar but pretty.’ He fell in love, but had a reputation as a fortune hunter, and was distraught when he was rejected.

But, undeterred, Charles married the elder sister, Anna Theresa (Anita) Murphy in 1883. Her father, an Irish-American entrepreneur Daniel T Murphy, founded the pioneer house of Murphy, Grant & Co, and was living in San Francisco. Anita, her sisters and her mother had moved to London, and they moved in fashionable circles in England and Europe. Anita was confirmed by Pope Leo XIII and a painting of Anita and her sister at their confirmation by Pope Leo XIII was once in the Wolseley family collection, and was still at Wolseley in 1971 when I interviewed Sir Charles Wolseley for the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury.

Later, Anita was presented at the Court of Saint James. She visited Osborne, the royal residence on the Isle of Wight, where she met Queen Victoria and Princess Beatrice, ancestor of the Mountbatten family. In her diary, Anita tells how she turned down a proposal of marriage from Prince Luigi del Drago, an Italian whose family included many cardinals and princes. Back in England, Anita’s first choice as husband was George Brundenell-Bruce, then known as Viscount Savernake and later 4th Marquess of Ailesbury. But Willie, as he was known, was an incessant gambler with an excessive lifestyle, and he brought his family to the brink of financial disaster. Eventually, he married Dolly Tester, a music hall actress, and Anita had a fortuitous escape from certain calamity.

Anita’s father, Daniel T Murphy, was a self-made multi-millionaire who had more money than he could spend. In 1857, he married Anna Geoghagan, also from an Irish family. The couple were the parents of four daughters, Isabella (Issy), Helene (Nellie), Anna Theresa (Anita) and Frances (Fanny), and three sons, Eugene, Daniel and Samuel.

Daniel Murphy visited his wife and daughters in London at least once a year. He was a staunch Roman Catholic and donated $5 million to Pope Pius IX. In return, the Pope made Murphy first a Knight and then a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory. Pope Leo XIII, who confirmed two of his daughters in Rome, gave Murphy the Grand Cross of Saint Gregory, and with a royal and papal patent of nobility, gave him the papal title of marchese or marquis, with the right of succession to his eldest son and his heirs.

Murphy enjoyed showing his American friends the papal patent, but he never used the title in public and his wife continued to be known in London only as Mrs Murphy and not as marchesa.

Anita Murphy and Sir Charles Wolseley were married on 17 July 1883 in the Catholic Pro-Cathedral in Kensington. The four bridesmaids were her three sisters, Nellie, Frances and Isabella, and a Miss Bedingfeld. The wedding Mass was said by the Revd Cuthbert Wolseley, OP, a Dominican priest and a younger brother of the groom – he was born Robert Joseph Wolseley (1850-1920). The wedding was blessed by Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, and there was a telegram from Pope Leo XIII.

The newspapers of the day delighted in lengthy lists of the titled and public figures who attended, including the US ambassador and poet James Russell Lowell, the Duke of Norfolk, Prince Doria Pamphilji, a son-in-law of the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Marquis of Bute and Lady Londonderry.

Anita (Murphy) Wolseley tired of life at Wolseley Hall and travelled abroad, alone … it was divorce Catholic-style in the early 20th century

On the day Anita and Charles were married, Mrs Murphy gave her first-born a cheque for $5 million drawn on the Bank of England. Daniel T Murphy died within two years in the Windsor Hotel, New York, on 3 June 1885. Many of his business interests passed to his brother Henry M Murphy and son, also Daniel T Murphy. His wife had arrived from England earlier that week and was with him when he died, as were two of his sons and a daughter.

In his will, dated 15 May 1883, Murphy left various bequests to the Catholic Church and family members, with his daughters receiving at least $50,000 each, even if that meant his sons received less. At first, Anita’s inheritance was estimated at $2 million, but Charles Wolseley never got his hands on it. By the time the marriage contract had been signed, Daniel T Murphy had died Anita’s sisters contested their father’s will. When Anita received her money, it was for her personally and not for her husband.

Jeannie Wolseley later said the marriage was relatively happy to begin with; the couple were the parents of two sons, Sir Edric Charles Joseph Wolseley (1886-1954) and Colonel William Wolseley (1887-1977). But Anita soon tired of life at Wolseley Hall and in rural Staffordshire, and she began travelling abroad, alone. She sent Charles a regular allowance, but this dropped steadily. It was divorce Catholic-style in the early 20th century.

By 1919, he had to sell almost all the contents of Wolseley Hall and several hundred acres of his estate. A broken man, he moved to Surrey and died on 30 January 1931, and was brought back to Rugeley to be buried in Saint Joseph and Saint Etheldreda churchyard, where he had donated the East Window by Hardman and Powell; Anita died on 11 October 1937.

The grave of Sir Charles Wolseley (1846-1931), the ninth baronet, in Saint Joseph and Saint Etheldreda churchyard, Rugeley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

3, Colonel William Wolseley and the Catholic Church:

When Sir Charles Wolseley died in 1931, the Wolseley title and estate passed to his elder son, Sir Edric Wolseley, tenth baronet and grandfather of the late Sir Charles Wolseley. Their younger son, Colonel William Wolseley (1887-1977), also had an interesting life and his life story is also the story of yet another interesting Wolseley marriage.

William Ralph Joseph Wolseley was born in London on 1 July 1887, the younger son of Sir Charles Michael Wolseley and Anita Murphy. He was a captain in the Staffordshire Yeomanry during World War I, and was mentioned in dispatches and decorated. He was a Justice of the Peace for Shropshire from 1939, and during World War II he was a colonel in the Royal Pioneer Corps.

William Wolseley married a vicar’s granddaughter, Ruth Gertrude Hargreaves (1893-1962), in Gnosall on 10 November 1923. Ruth was one of three daughters of Colonel Robert Halstead Hargreaves (1861-1909) of Knightley Grange, near Eccleshall. Her maternal grandfather was the Revd Charles Holden Steward (1859-1915).

The Wolseley family were staunchly Catholic, but when William married Ruth, the vicar’s granddaughter she would not agree to bring up any future children as Roman Catholics. In order to go ahead with the marriage, William had to leave the Catholic Church and he was excommunicated.

Ruth (Hargreaves) Wolseley (left) as a child with her sisters Violet (centre) and Nancy

Family members tell me Ruth ‘smoked cigars like a chimney and swore like a trooper’. She was, by all accounts, a tiny woman with a very domineering character, who probably gave William little choice but to leave the Catholic Church in order to marry her. They lived at Knightley Grange, and during World War II Ruth was in the Women’s Land Army and the WVS. Although William was devoted to Ruth, family members believe his decision to leave the Catholic Church caused him great upset in later life.

Ruth and William were the parents of a son and daughter: Robert William Hargreaves Wolseley (1924-1998), and Veronica Ruth Theresa Rose Wolseley (1928-2019). Ruth died at Knightley Grange in 1962, William Wolseley died in 1977. Some of the more valuable contents of Knightley Grange were sold off at auction over two days in June 1966, and the property, which had been in the Hargreaves family for over 100 years, was sold in 1967.

The house at Knightley Grange was finally demolished in 2019.

The house at Knightley Grange where Ruth and William Wolseley lived after they married in 1923 was demolished in 2019

4, Another American in the family:

William Wolseley’s elder brother, Sir Edric Wolseley (1886-1954), was the grandfather of the late Sir Charles Wolseley (1944-2018), the 11th baronet. A painting of two of the Murphy girls at their confirmation by Pope Leo XIII was once among the paintings in the Wolseley family collection. It was still at Wolseley Park in 1971 when I interviewed Sir Charles for the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury.

It was a well-edited feature, with a fine photograph of Charles and his first Anita (Fried) and their eldest daughter. They warmly welcomed me to Wolseley Park House, more features followed on the Dyott, Anson, Levett and other families, and I built up a portfolio that helped to set me up for a 30-year career as a journalist.

At the time, I was in my late teens training as a chartered surveyor, and Charles Wolseley was then a chartered surveyor with Smith Gore in Lichfield, driving a trademark red sports car around town, commuting daily between Lichfield and Wolseley.

Charles and Anita were divorced in 1984, and later that year he married the American writer Imogen (Jeannie) Brown (1943-2024), who was researching a book on American heiresses who married impoverished English aristocrats.

When Charles and Jeannie had to move out of Wolseley to Penkridge after he was declared bankrupt, she talked about the painting being so large that it would be better placed in a museum in San Francisco. Today it is in the Villa Magistrale on the Aventine in Rome, where it was identified some years ago by Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen when he was the Hungarian Ambassador to the Vatican.

Sir Charles Wolseley and his second wife, Imogene (Jeannie) Brown, in 1992 … after their bankruptcy, they relied on the generosity of neighbours and friends

Family members recall how Charles and Jeannie Wolseley spoke openly of their situation and how people would come up to Charles in the supermarket in Rugeley and place a £10 note in his hand. Frequently they discovered gifts of food, money and even a car delivered to the house.

‘They were clearly a strong couple,’ a family member told me.

I wrote to him when I heard about his problems, enclosed a cutting of that full-page feature in the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury. I thanked him for an opportunity that secured a career in journalism that lasted most of my adult life, and thanked him too for that offer at Smiths Gore.

Despite his divorce and remarriage, Charles seems to have had a happier relationship with the Catholic Church than his uncle William. Charles died on 5 March 2018 and his funeral took place in Saint Joseph and Saint Etheldreda Church on 24 March 2018. His widow Jeannie died in Rugeley two years ago, on 11 July 2024, and her funeral was held in the church on 26 July 2024.

The Wolseley Arms by the River Trent near Rugeley in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 71, Friday 17 July 2026

‘At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the sabbath’ (Matthew 12: 1) … walking through fields in Hopwas, between Lichfield and Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the Sixth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VI, 12 July 2026).

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Walking through the fields near Comberford Hall, between Lichfield and Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Matthew 12: 1-8 (NRSVA):

1 At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.’ 3 He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests. 5 Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 But if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”, you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’

The Bread of the Presence in the Temple depicted in the Kupa Synagogue in Kraków (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

Summer is a beautiful time of the year in the countryside, with ripe fields of green and yellow under blue skies. In the past few weeks, I have walked through ripe fields and meadows by Stony Stratford and Winslow in Buckinghamshire, near Lichfield, Tamworth and Rugeley in south Staffordshire, in Oxford, and I have passed through beautiful fields on bus journeys in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire and Norfolk.

As I read this morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (Matthew 12: 1-8), I imagine Christ and his disciples walking through fields of green and gold such as these when they are confronted with the bureaucratic rules of the day and are accused of breaking the Sabbath.

Christ responds by stating that plucking grain on the Sabbath does not profane sacred writ. In doing so he reinterprets the Torah and clarifies the true nature of sacred endeavour.

Matthew 12:1-8 may be a retelling of Mark 2: 23-27. An analysis of this passage shows:

• verses 3-4 are an historical analogy found in I Samuel 21: 1-6, where David’s hunger supersedes the Law;

• verse 5 is a reconfiguration of Numbers 28: 9-10 and Exodus 35: 3;

• verse 7 is a reworking Hosea 6: 6: ‘For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings’ (NRSVA).

The reference to David’s story (I Samuel 21: 1-6) associates the temple with the alleviation of hunger and makes the point that hunger supersedes form and tradition.

Hosea 6: 6 repeats the principle that human need is pre-eminent over tradition.

Christ presents his own teachings not as a replacement for Torah but as a guide to its fulfilment. Ultimately, the Torah is to reflect God’s character of love, mercy, and generosity, and human need has priority over religious observance. Mercy was, and is, more in line with God’s intentions for the Sabbath rather than the strict obedience of the Sabbath demanded at the time.

This morning’s Gospel reading offers an interesting challenge to oppressive bureaucracy and rule-making, an important insight at a time when oppressive rules and regulations are being made day-by-day by capricious decision-makers in the White House.

This passage also offers insights into how Christ looks to a future beyond both Torah and Temple. It is a reading that looks forward to a new era of mercy, beyond compliance to the narrow interpretations of laws and regulations.

Fresh bread welcoming guests at the Captain’s House in Panormos, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 17 July 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 12 to 18 July 2026 (pp 18-19), is ‘The Land of the Highlanders’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a reflection by the Most Revd Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

The USPG prayer diary today (Friday 17 July 2026) invites us to pray

Lord God, strengthen your Church in the Highlands as it ministers across great distances. Sustain our leaders, clergy and congregations with perseverance and hope.

The Collect of the Day:

Merciful God,
you have prepared for those who love you
such good things as pass our understanding:
pour into our hearts such love toward you
that we, loving you in all things and above all things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God of our pilgrimage,
you have led us to the living water:
refresh and sustain us
as we go forward on our journey,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect

Creator God,
you made us all in your image:
may we discern you in all that we see,
and serve you in all that we do;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

Walking through the fields at Hawkesyard Hall in Armitage, near Rugeley in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

The Shrewsbury peerage case and how branches of the Talbot family fought over old titles and lands

The Talbot Arms in Rugeley became the Shrewsbury Arms after Lord Talbot became the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1860 … it is now called ‘The Shrew’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I was saying in a posting yesterday how the intricacies in the family trees of the Talbot and Chetwynd families are difficult to untangle, and produce many obstacles and problems for genealogists and family historians.

The Shrewsbury Peerage Case (1858-1860) was a landmark case before the House of Lords in a dispute over the succession to prestigious titles in both England and Ireland and to vast estates in Staffordshire and other parts of England. The decision by the House of Lords in the case established legal precedents in peerage law and estate inheritance.

The Earls of Shrewsbury were the premier earls in both England and Ireland, and their string of titles include Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl of Waterford and Earl of Wexford. The titles dated back to mid-15th century, when the celebrated warrior John Talbot was made the first Earl of Shrewsbury in 1442 and first Earl of Waterford and Wexford in 1445. The earls also held the hereditary title of Lord High Steward of Ireland, an office that traditionally allowed them to carry bear a white staff at the coronation of the monarch.

John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1445 … a detail from the Talbot Shrewsbury Book … note the white talbot at his feet to the left

George Talbot (1719-1787), 14th Earl of Shrewsbury, had succeeded his uncle in 1743. George had no children, and when he died, he was succeeded by his nephew, Charles Talbot, as the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury. In 1812, Charles Talbot to lay out the extensive gardens at Alveton Lodge, Staffordshire, which had been in the Talbot family since the 15th century and would become Alton Towers.

When the 15th earl died, the titles were inherited by his nephew John Talbot as the 16th earl. When the principal home of the Talbot family at Heythrop, near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, was destroyed by fire in 1831, he moved to Alton Towers.

John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who lived at Alton Towers, commissioned AWN Pugin to build many churches in Staffordshire, including Saint Giles’s Church, Cheadle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The 16th earl was a noted patron of the architect AWN Pugin. This John Talbot married Maria Theresa Talbot (1795-1856), daughter of William Talbot of Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, Mary (O’Toole) in Bath on 27 June 1814, and both branches of the Talbot family were patrons of Pugin and his church building programmes in Staffordshire and Co Wexford.

Maria died on 6 June 1856, in Paris, France, at the age of 61, and was buried at Alton Towers. Maria and John were the parents of three children, a son who died in infancy, and two daughters:

1, Lady Mary Althea Beatrix Talbot (1815-1858), born on 29 May 1815, married Prince Filippo Andrea Doria-Pamphili-Landi, and died in Rome on 18 December 1858, aged 43.

2, John Talbot (1816-1817), their only son, born 27 November 1816, died 20 March 1817 in Paris.

3, Lady Gwendoline Catherine Talbot (1817-1840), born on 5 December 1817 in Cheltenham, married Prince Marcantonio Borghese, and died in Rome on 27 October 1840.

John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, died from malaria in Naples on 9 November 1852. Because he had no surviving sons, he was succeeded as the 17th Earl of Shrewsbury by his second cousin once removed and his adopted heir, Bertram Arthur Talbot, according to the rules of male-preference primogeniture. Bertram was the great-grandson of George Talbot, a younger son of Gilbert Talbot (died 1711), second son of the 10th Earl of Shrewsbury.

The Tame of the Talbot family and the Earls of Shrewsbury has gives name to pubs and inns throughout England (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bertram, who has been described as having a mild disposition, was an invalid with delicate health. He had been informally adopted by the 16th earl and he was a Knight Commander of Malta, and a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Pope Pius IX. He was also about to be nominated a knight of the Order of Saint Patrick.

When Bertram succeeded to the title in 1852, he was still under age, and when he. Having reached the age of 21, he took his seat in the House of Lords in February 1854, and he began proceedings to claim the office of Hereditary Lord High Steward of Ireland, a claim that was referred to the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords.

Bertram arrived at Lisbon hoping to travel on to Cintra, and accompanied on the trip by Anne Talbot from Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, a sister the late Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, Father Charles Brierley Garside (1818-1876), his domestic chaplain, and Dr Mervyn Crawford, his personal doctor. But their plans were delayed by an outbreak of cholera in Lisbon. Bertram moved into the Hotel Braganza, where his symptoms deteriorated rapidly. Bertram died on 10 August 1856 in Lisbon at the age of 23; he was unmarried and childless, and left no direct Catholic successor.

The arms of the Talbot family, Earls of Shrewsbury, represented on the doors of Saint Giles’s Church in Cheadle, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Talbot family tree is widespread, with many branches, and when Bertram died it became difficult to disentangle the tree and to identify clearly the heir to the family estates and titles. His will reflected his staunch Catholicism by making the inheritance of the Talbot family estates conditional on the heir being a Roman Catholic.

The 17th earl believed he was the last descendant in the male line of the first Earl of Shrewsbury and so he tried to leave much of his extensive property to a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk. Without a Catholic heir, the terms of Bertram’s will devolved the properties were to devolve to two prominent Catholics, Ambrose Lisle March Phillipps de Lisle (1809-1878) and Lord Edmund Bernard FitzAlan-Howard (1855-1947), a son of the Duke of Norfolk. To conform to the terms of Bertram’s will, Edmund later changed his name by royal licence and was known from 1876 to 1922 as Lord Edmund Talbot.

But Bertram’s will was contested by relatives, and there were four separate contenders for the title of Earl of Shrewsbury, the associated titles and the Talbot family estates:

1, Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot, the primary contender for the titles and estates, who also held the titles of Viscount of Ingestre and Baron Talbot. Bertram Talbot and Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot were so distantly related that their shared ancestor was nine generations back: John Talbot, who died in 1549. He was a descendant in the male line of Sir Gilbert Talbot (died 1518), third son of the 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury.

2, The Duke of Norfolk, as guardian of the interests of his infant son, to whom Bertram Talbot had tried to bequeath Alton Towers.

3, Lady Mary Althea Beatrix Talbot (1815-1858), known as Princess Doria-Pamphili-Landi, the only surviving child of John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury.

4, Major William Talbot (JP (1789-1861) of Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, who traced his ancestry back to William Talbot, fourth son of George Talbot, 4th Earl of Shrewsbury. His sister, Maria Theresa Talbot (1795-1856), had married John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1814, and he was an uncle of Princess Doria-Pamphili-Landi.

The ‘Great Shrewsbury Case’ was heard by the House of Lords, and hearings began in 1857.

The Shrewsbury Chapel in Sheffield Cathedral was built in the 16th century to house the Tudor monuments of the Earls of Shrewsbury (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When Earl Talbot’s printed document formally asserting his claims to the earldoms of Shrewsbury, Waterford and Wexford was laid on the table of the House of Lords it ran to 41 pages of genealogical and other matters. The House of Lords referred it to the committee of privileges on 9 May 1857.

After a long and expensive legal case, the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords ruled in 1860 in favour of Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot, who then became the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury, Waterford and Wexford. He was also awarded much of the family estates. The Committee of Privileges rejected the rival petitions from Major Talbot, the Duke of Norfolk on behalf of his infant son, and Princess Doria Pamphili, who was dead by then, having died in Rome on 18 December 1858.

A further suit was heard in the Court of Chancery for possession of the Talbot estates at Alton Towers and other places in Staffordshire, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and Berkshire. Legal costs depleted the intended legacies, reducing Phillipps de Lisle’s share to £11,000, and so thwarting the 16th Earl's efforts to preserve Catholic control over his family patrimony.

Saint Michael’s Church, Brereton, was Saint Michael’s Church was built on a site donated by Charles Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot, 2nd Earl Talbot, father of Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot and 18th Earl of Shrewsbury (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The protracted litigation, lasting many months, resulted in exorbitant costs that eroded intended bequests. Phillipps de Lisle eventually received only £11,000 of his £40,000 legacy after legal expenses.

The other beneficiary, Edmund Bernard FitzAlan-Howard, was the second son of the 14th Duke of Norfolk. He was known as the Hon Edmund Fitzalan-Howard and later as Lord Edmund Fitzalan-Howard until 1876, and then as Lord Edmund Talbot from 1876 and 1921. He was the principal beneficiary in Bertram Talbot’s will, provided he took the surname and arms of Talbot, which he did in 1876. However, the legal litigation and contests over the titles and the terms of the wills, eventually left Edmund with only scattered minor lands.

He was the Conservative MP for Chichester from 1894 to 1921. On 27 April 1921, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the first Roman Catholic to hold the office since 1685 during the reign of James II. His appointment was made possible through the Government of Ireland Act 1920.

He returned to the use of his paternal name in 1921, shortly after being made a peer in his own right with the title of Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent, a day after his appointment as Lord Lieutenant. However, he was in office for only a year and a half. The post was abolished when the Irish Free State came into existence in 1922, and he was replaced by the Governor-General of the Irish Free State and the Governor of Northern Ireland. He died on 18 May 1947 at 91, and was succeeded in his titles by his only son, Henry.

Dublin Castle … Lord Edmund Talbot, later Lord Derwent, was the last Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Shrewsbury peerage case drew attention to the tensions the creation of religious stipulations in wills and statutory inheritance rules that seemed to continue to favour Protestant lines of descent in the decades immediately after Catholic Emancipation. The verdict also served to emphasise underscored the legal primacy of bloodline inheritance over testamentary conditions favouring religious affiliation in 19th-century peerage law.

The 18th Earl of Shrewsbury had an eventful naval career. He had been a senior naval office, commanding the Philomel at the battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827, and eventually became an Admiral in 1865 and naval ADC to Queen Victoria. He was also MP for South Staffordshire (1837-1849). With his new titles he also became Hereditary High Steward of Ireland, and took part in the installation of the Prince of Wales as a Knight of Saint Patrick in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, in 1868. As Earl of Shrewsbury, he was also Earl of Waterford, while, interestingly, his wife Lady Sarah Elizabeth Beresford (1807-1884), was a daughter of the Marquess of Waterford.

When the 18th earl died, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Charles John Chetwynd-Talbot (1830-1877), as the 19th earl. This was the first time in over 200 years, since the death of the 11th earl in 1667, that the title of Earl of Shrewsbury had passed from father to son.

The 20th earl created a scandal in Victorian England by eloping with a married woman, Ellen Miller-Mundy. They were later married, but after he died in 1921, another bitter court battle over the estate was fought by his widow Ellen and his grandson, John Talbot, 21st Earl of Shrewsbury, who claimed his grandfather was not of sound mind when writing his will and won a court settlement.

Today, the titles are held by Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 22nd Earl of Shrewsbury, who succeeded his father in 1980. He was suspended from the House of Lords for his part in a lobbying scandal in 2022, and was barred from carrying out his family’s role at the coronation of King Charles in May 2023. Since then, he was suspended again for making false travel expenses claims and using a House of Lords rail season ticket for non-parliamentary business.

Ironically, the present Earl of Shrewsbury is also known for selling off alluring but meaningless titles such as ‘deputy lord high stewardship of Ireland’. Some years ago, Manorial Auctioneers were offering the title of the ‘Barony of Dungarvan,’ Co Waterford. Later, this supposed feudal barony was back on the market again with an online business known as nobility.co.uk. Although the Barony of Dungarvan was granted to the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1446, it is doubtful that the title still survives as any kind of legal entity.

There is no territorial Barony of Dungarvan in Co Waterford, yet the site was offering the ‘Barony of Dungarvan, Ireland,’ along with the titles of ‘Baron and Baroness,’ and said it was ‘once held by Earl of Shrewsbury, Premier Earl of England and High Steward of Ireland.’ Potential buyers were told that ‘the list price’ for this title was once £45,000, but the selling price had been reduced to £20,000.

Lord Shrewsbury also called in recent years for a change of law so daughters can inherit hereditary titles from their parents. If such a change had been made before the ruling in the Shrewsbury case in 1860, Lord Shrewsbury would not hold his present titles, and they might be held by some Italian prince or princess, or by a member of the Talbot family in Co Wexford.

The Talbot Hotel, Wexford … remembering the link between two branches of the Talbot family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Chetwynd divorce trial that was a society sensation and scandal beyond Lichfield and Staffordshire in the 1860s

Longdon Hall, between Lichfield and Rugeley … at the centre of a sensational divorce case in 1864-1865 (Photograph: Longdon Hall School)

Patrick Comerford

With my recent return visits to Rugeley, Brereton, Stafford, Wolseley, Lichfield, Tamworth and other parts of Staffordshire, I have written about the Chetwynd family, the supposed murder by Dorothy Chetwynd of Sir Walter Smyth, the elderly husband who was three times her age, and the complete lack of historical evidence or primary sources for the stories in local lore of that murder or of Dorothy’s alleged execution by being burned at the stake.

Those stories of the Chetwynd family also led me to further genealogical and historical research into other family stories, and I came across stories of one branch of the Chetwynd family in Rugeley who were direct descendants of the Comberford family of Comberford Hall and the Moat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth.

This branch of the Chetwynd family included another Dorothy Chetwynd who was a nun in Bruges, a 17th century; a 17th century MP for Stafford; and an 18th century MP for Lichfield who ran up heavy debts and whose funeral was delayed for weeks by his creditors.

Another branch of the Talbot family were given the title Earl Talbot, donated land for Saint Michael’s Church in Brereton, and gave their name to many places in the Rugeley area, including the Talbot Arms, associated with the ‘Poisoner of Rugeley’ William Palmer. After one Earl Tabot also became Earl of Shrewsbury, the pub became the Shrewsbury Arms, and is now known as ‘The Shrew’.

When I was writing about these stories of the Chetwynd and Talbot families, I referred to another marriage involving the Chetwynd and Talbot families that resulted in a sensational divorce case in 1865, and promised then to tell that story another evening.

William Henry Chetwynd (1811-1890) is remembered as one of the parties in the sensational Chetwynd v Chetwynd divorce case in 1864-1865, a case that highlighted Victorian attitudes to marriage, divorce, morals scandal, women’s rights and roles, children’s protection and family law.

William lived at Longdon Hall, halfway between Lichfield and Rugeley, where his income came from his family’s large landed estates and farms and from horse trading. The family estates were centred on Brocton Hall, their ancestral seat with 700 acres in Staffordshire, but also included Grendon Hall in Warwickshire, and the Bishton Hall estate inherited through the Sparrow family.

William was born on 17 September 1811 at Brocton Hall, Staffordshire, the family seat of the Chetwynd baronets. He was the second son of Sir George Chetwynd (1783-1850), 2nd baronet, and his wife Hannah Maria Sparrow of Bishton Hall, Staffordshire. Sir George succeeded to his father’s title and estates in 1824, and William Henry Chetwynd’s elder brother, Sir George Chetwynd (1809-1869), succeeded as the third baronet when their father died in 1850.

William Henry Chetwynd spent his childhood at Brocton Hall, which was largely rebuilt around 1815. He married the aristocratic Blanche Mary Talbot (1836-1898) at Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, then a fashionable venue for society weddings in London, on 15 August 1854.

Blanche was born on 14 November 1836, a daughter of the Revd Hon Arthur Chetwynd-Talbot (1805-1884) and Harriet Elizabeth Frances Hervey-Aston (1815-1845) and a niece of Henry Chetwynd-Talbot, 18th Earl of Shrewsbury, and a granddaughter of Charles Talbot, 2nd Earl Talbot. She was baptised on 4 January 1837 in Ingestre by her father, who was the Rector of Ingestre, and later Rector of Church Eaton and a rural dean in the Diocese of Lichfield. Blanche and William were distantly related: a distant ancestor, Charles Talbot (1685-1737) had married Catherine Chetwynd, and inherited the estates of the Ingestre branch of the Chetwynd family.

William Henry Chetwynd and Blanche Mary Talbot were married in Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, London, on 15 August 1854 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

At the time of their wedding, William was 42 and Blanche was 17, an age difference of 25 years. William later alleged that at the time of their marriage Blanche was two months pregnant by another man. He claimed in court during their divorce hearings that he knew this, but that he had gone ahead with the wedding regardless, claiming he had saved her from social disgrace.

Despite these repeated allegations, I have found no records of a child born within seven months of their marriage, although they were the parents of two children:

1, Florence Chetwynd (1856-1936), born in February 1856. She married her distant cousin Lord Berkeley Charles Sydney Paget, a son of Henry Paget 2nd Marquess Anglesey, on 5 June 1877.

2, Arthur Chetwynd (1857-1926), born on 22 July 1857, died on 15 August 1926.

As their relationship deteriorated , there were allegations of mutual infidelity, cruelty and financial mismanagement, exacerbated by Blanche’s secret decision to become a Roman Catholicism in 1862 and her independent dealings in horses and loans.

In December 1864, Blanche petitioned the Divorce Court for the dissolution of their marriage on grounds of her husband’s adultery with servants and cruelty, including claims that he forced her to perform menial tasks, used abusive language, and ill-treated animals and children in her presence.

William denied the charges and filed a recriminatory suit, accusing her of adultery with a prominent barrister Henry Matthews and a theology student named Nichols. The only evidence for these alleged infidelities were entries in her private diary revealing intimate feelings toward Matthews and criticisms of her husband.

Due to its complexity and the Christmas season, the trial lasted for many days, and because of its lurid details it attracted widespread press coverage. The evidence included anonymous insulting letters written by William Chetwynd and intercepted correspondence.

The judgment, delivered in Chetwynd v Chetwynd (1865), granted the divorce despite recrimination, finding William Chetwynd guilty of adultery and Blanche Chetwynd guilty of adultery based on the entries in her diary. In a landmark decision on child welfare, the court deemed both parents unfit and awarded custody of the children to third parties, reflecting shift in the Victorian era towards prioritising minors' moral protection over parental rights.

The divorce case heard how Blanche Chetwynd slept on the stairs or was forced to flee Longdon Hall

The case heard how early discord was reflected in petty arguments, such as a dispute in 1854 over Blanche's supposed tardiness at breakfast and another following her late return from a hunt at Beaudesert, where Chetwynd accused her of disrespecting him and suggested she find another place to live.

The rift to deepened by the late 1850s, with further financial pressures. Blanche was accumulating debts over £2,000 against William’s annual income of £1,200 through buying and selling horses at fairs, often borrowing from dealers at high interest rates secured by her family connections.

Rumours of mutual infidelities were supported by periods of separation and temporary relocation, including Blanche’s secretive departure from Longdon Hall. A pivotal escalation came in 1862, when Blanche became a Roman Catholic without her husband’s knowledge. She fled in distress to the home of the Revd James William Knight (1820-1878), Headmaster of Lichfield Grammar School (1859-1866).

Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and Earl Talbot … negotiations on behalf of the Talbot and Shrewsbury interests facilitated a brief reconciliation

Negotiations involving her family solicitor, Mr Nicholson, acting for the Talbot and Shrewsbury interests, facilitated a brief reconciliation, but trust was eroded once more by anonymous harassing letters, later shown to have been written by William. Blanche finally filed for divorce in late 1864 on grounds of her husband’s alleged adultery and cruelty. William countered with claims of his wife’s infidelity.

The case of Chetwynd v Chetwynd began in late 1864 in the Divorce Court, presided over by Sir James Wilde, and continued into February 1865. Evidence was heard over several days, drawing extensive media attention for their salacious details.

Blanche claimed her husband had been guilty of great cruelty, had taught their children to spit in her face and to call her foul names, had locked her out of the house or forced her to sleep on the stairs, threatened her with a horsewhip and a pitchfork, had been guilty of repeated acts of adultery with his female servants and had lived with the children’s governess, Helen Booth.

Servants who were called to court alleged William’s repeated adultery with female domestic staff at Longdon Hall, as well as acts of cruelty such as teaching the children to insult their mother and spit in her face, and locking her out of the house at night.

The witnesses who gave evidence on her behalf included the Revd James Knight, a family acquaintance and master of the Grammar School, Lichfield. He had known Blanche since she was a child and William since 1856. Knight recalled Blanche’s distressed state during visits to his home in 1863. She sought safety at night in Knight’s house in Lichfield before returning to Longdon Hall. But she returned to Lichfield to seek safety in Knight’s home a second time.

Detectives and hotel staff corroborated William’s extramarital liaisons, detailing a pattern of infidelity and domestic abuse.

William’s defence, was led by Sir Henry Hawkins, a prominent barrister and later a controversial judge. William sought to bar the divorce under the doctrine of recrimination. When he took the stand, he refuted allegations of violence, cruelty and neglect and claimed his wife had left home without notice for religious reasons and managed independent horse dealings that incurred debts exceeding his annual income.

He alleged Blanche was pregnant when they married, and that he was not the father of the child but that he ‘removed her from disgrace’. Excerpts from Blanche’s private diary were read into evidence, revealing her intimate feelings for Henry Matthews, a family friend. These including passages on unrequited love, passionate encounters, and moral turmoil, which Hawkins argued demonstrated her own adulterous intent.

Witnesses, including hotel proprietors, placed Blanche with Matthews, and separately with Nichols, in compromising situations, including sharing a bed at the Falcon Hotel in Birmingham in December 1863.

Cross-examinations highlighted inconsistencies in witness accounts, with William portraying himself as a victim of Blanche’s extravagance. He accused his wife of associating with what he saw as low company, including ‘horse dealers’ and ‘pig jobbers’ at fairs. Part of William’s evidence included claims that his wife had called him ‘Dear Old Billy.’ There was laughter in the court when lines were quoted from a ballad well-known in Staffordshire, ‘The Wednesbury Cock’ but that William had confused with Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians.

The co-respondent in William Chetwynd's counter-petition, Henry Matthews, was implicated through letters and diary entries suggesting improper intimacy, although there was no direct testimony from him.

Despite the mutual accusations, the court found Chetwynd’s adultery proven beyond doubt, while his recriminatory claims against his wife were deemed insufficient to bar relief, as her journal was evidence of intent but not of consummated acts.

On 25 February 1865, Sir James Wilde granted a decree nisi to Blanche, awarding costs against her husband, and ordering alimony payments to Blanche. The court also deemed both parents unfit and awarded custody of their children to third parties, reflecting emerging child welfare principle. They were put in the care of William’s elder brother, Sir George Chetwynd.

The Schoolmaster’s House (left) at the old Grammar School on Saint John Street, Lichfield … it is now the home Lichfield Discovered (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Following the case, William Henry Chetwynd returned to live at Longdon Hall, between Lichfield and Rugeley. There he lived a more secluded lifestyle without his children, and was a Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace for Staffordshire. He married a second wife, Mary Parkin, on 7 December 1875 at Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, the same church where William and Blanche were married 21 years earlier. William died at Longdon Hall on 5 July 1890, aged 78, and was buried at Saint Michael and All Angels Church, Colwich, near Longdon Hall.

The Chetwynd case was an early instance where the Divorce Court exercised broad discretion in fault-based proceedings. The finding of mutual culpability led to a rare outcome where neither party was deemed the ‘innocent spouse’, resulting in the denial of custody to both parents and placing their children with third-party guardians, illustrating an emphasis on marital fault extending to parental rights.

The case also reflects the privileges afforded to the upper classes in accessing the divorce court, while families with limited resources often endured marital discord without formal dissolution because of financial barriers. The case highlights entrenched gender and class norms, with women’s private thoughts subject to more rigorous scrutiny and questioning than men’s actions, and reinforcing the patriarchal double standards of the time in family law.

Because of the development of a popular media and cheaper newspapers, the case acquired popular notoriety and was a greater source of gossip not just in Staffordshire, but across the world, compared, for example with another divorce case in the same part of Staffordshire a century earlier, involving Sir William Wolseley who married Ann Whitby in 1752, a sad story I recounted in recent weeks.

Brocton Hall, near Rugeley and Stafford … home to generations of the Chetwynd family of Rugeley

Whatever happened to the principal characters in the Chetwynd divorce drama?

William Chetwynd died at home in Longdon Hall, in 1890, and was buried nearby in Colwich. His property, including Longdon Hall, passed to the children of Blanche and William, Florence and Arthur. Arthur Chetwynd continued to live at Longdon Hall and to manage the estate; Lord Berkeley Paget died at Longdon Hall on 25 November 1913, and Florence died there on 26 May 1936. The family title and Brocton Hall were eventually inherited in 1938 by Arthur’s son, Sir Arthur Henry Talbot Chetwynd (1877-1972).

Blanche never married again, and died on 15 July 1898. Her half-brother, Canon Arthur Henry Chetwynd-Talbot (1855-1927), was later a Prebendary of Lichfield, Provost of Denstone College, Uttoxeter, and the Rector of Edgmond, Newport, Shropshire. Her uncle, Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot (1803-1868), 3rd Earl Talbot, eventually succeeded as 18th Earl of Shrewsbury in 1856, and those titles have continued with his descendants. Those descendants included John George Chetwynd-Talbot (1914-1980), 21st Earl of Shrewsbury and 6th Earl Talbot. He sued for divorce in 1958, but Judge Charles A Collingwood refused the application in 1959, and he did not get a divorce until a subsequent case in 1963.

The Revd James William Knight, the kindly and concerned Master of Lichfield Grammar School who offered Blanche refuge on at least two occasions, was later Sub-Warden of Saint Paul’s College, Stony Stratford (1873-1875). He died on 26 August 1878, at Car-Colston Vicarage, Nottinghamshire. The Schoolmaster’s House at the old Grammar School on Saint John Street, Lichfield, where he lived is now home to the local history group Lichfield Discovered.

William Chetwynd’s counsel, Sir Henry Hawkins (1817-1907), later 1st Baron Brampton, became a controversial judge and was known as a severe ‘hanging judge’. His sisters included Susanna Hawkins who married William Comerford Casey of Cork and Liverpool. He was a cousin of the Revd Edwards Comerford Hawkins (1827-1906), of Saint Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, London, father of the writer Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, author of The Prisoner of Zenda.

I have yet to identify the theology student or seminarian named as a theology student named simply as Nichols.

The co-respondent, Henry Matthews (1826-1913), was a prominent Roman Catholic and a Conservative politician. Matthews never took the stand at the Chetwynd case, and so it seems ironic that he made his name at the Bar for his examination of witnesses, especially Sir Charles Dilke in a sensational divorce case in 1885. He was MP for Dungarvan, Co Waterford (1868-1874), and later for Birmingham East (1886-1892), and he was the Home Secretary (1886-1892) throughout the Whitechapel Murders, some of which are attributed to Jack the Ripper. He was given the title of 1st Viscount Llandaff in 1895 and died unmarried in 1913 at the age of 87.

The intricate and puzzling details of the Chetwynd and Talbot family trees in Staffordshire and Wexford is a tangled web that continues to fascinate me. The story of how the Chetwynd-Talbot branch of the family in Rugeley and Brereton managed to convince their peers that they were the rightful heirs to the titles of Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl of Waterford and Earl of Wexford is another genealogical riddle that I hope to try to unravel or disentangle on another evening.

Henry Matthews (1826-1913), the co-respondent in William Chetwynd's counter-petition, later become Home Secretary and Viscount Llandaff … he never married

Further Reading:

HE Chetwynd-Stapylton, The Chetwynds of Ingestre, being a history of that family from a very early date (London: Longman & Green, 1892)

The memorial stone in Saint Mary’s Church, Ingestre, for Blanche’s uncle, Henry Chetwynd-Talbot (1803-1868), 18th Earl of Shrewsbury and 3rd Earl Talbot

Finding the other Lady Fitzgerald who had family roots in Lichfield, who was married three times, and whose life was marked by tragedy

Dam Street, Lichfield, where Lady Fitzgerald’s grandfather Christopher Heveningham was a mercer and draper (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I was recalling last night (15 May 2026) the social scandal that became a point of gossip in Staffordshire in the mid-18th century when Sir William Wolseley took his supposed second wife Anne Whitby to court in Lichfield seeking a divorce or annulment. The case involved allegations and accusations of greed, manipulation, cheating, forgery, desertion, perjury, bigamy, adultery, bribery, drugged drinks and corrupt and dishonest clergy.

Quite separately, I wrote some time ago (4 June 2020) about Sir James Fitzgerald who lived decades later at Wolseley Hall and in Lichfield and who managed to convincingly persuade people far and wide – and even Burke’s Peerage – that he was the rightful holder of an Irish title of baronet given to a different branch of the Fitzgerald family in Co Limerick.

Fitzgerald’s wife, Augusta Henrietta Fremantle (1803-1863), was known in polite circles as Lady Fitzgerald. They married in 1826 and lived for some years at Maple Hayes Hall near Pipe Hall and Lichfield. When he died in France in 1839, he was described as living at Wolseley Hall, but his widow continued to live at Maple Hayes and in 1841 she was attending Holy Cross Church, Lichfield. She later moved to Castle Ishen, Co Cork, where she died in 1863.

But there was another Lady Fitzgerald, the wife of a real Irish baronet, who also lived in Lichfield in the 19th century, and who had strong connections with Lichfield through her immediate ancestors, her mother and grandparents, her cousins and her grandchildren, and who was a direct descendant of the Comberford family of Comberford Hall.

Margaret (Warner) Fitzgerald was a direct descendant of Margaret Comberford and William Stanley who lived at Comberford Hall 250 years before she was born (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Margaret Warner (1806-1883), who eventually became the other Lady Fitzgerald in Lichfield, was a cousin of a number of prominent clergy in Victorian Lichfield, she was married three times, and the family of her third husband is still remembered in Ireland for the tragedies that befell successive generations, decade after decade, until the family line died out in 1917. Her life is a sad tale that includes drownings, suicide, a child’s death at play, crushing family debts, being widowed three times and her final days lived out in genteel poverty with fading memories of life among minor aristocracy.

This Lady Fitzgerald was born Margaret Warner in 1806, the daughter of Elizabeth Heveningham (1774-1823) from Lichfield and William Warner (1762-1835). They were married in Saint Philip’s Church, Birmingham, now Birmingham Cathedral.

Her mother Elizabeth Heveningham was born in Lichfield on 18 August 1774, the daughter of Charles Heveningham (1737-1782), a mercer and draper of Dam Street, Lichfield. He may have spent part of his childhood at Pipe Hall, the Heveningham ancestral home near Lichfield, and he was a direct descendant of Charles Heveningham (1540-1574) of Pipe Hall and his wife Dorothy Stanley (1530-1587), only daughter of William Stanley of Comberford Hall and Margaret Comberford (1494-1568). I have written last year (23 July 2025) about the Heveningham family and their links with the Comberford family.

Saint Mary’s Church, Lichfield, at night … many members of the Heveningham family were baptised and buried from there (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Charles Heveningham’s first cousin Mary married the Revd Daniel William Remington, Vicar of Saint Michael’s (1757-1772) and of Saint Mary’s (1772-1789), Lichfield, and sub-chanter of Lichfield Cathedral; Elizabeth (Heveningham) Warner was a second cousin of two successive Vicars of Saint Mary’s, the Revd William Remington, who founded the first Sunday school in Lichfield, and the Revd Edward Remington; another second cousin Mary Remington married Thomas White, Procurator of the Ecclesiastical Court in Lichfield and a cousin of the poet Anna Seward, the ‘Swan of Lichfield’.

Elizabeth’s daughter Margaret Warner was married three times, and she was 47 and twice widowed when, on 27 April 1854, she married her third husband, Sir John Judkin-Fitzgerald (1787-1860), an Irish baronet, as his third wife.

Margaret was only 20 – perhaps even younger – when she married her first husband, Robert Jones Parry of Aston-juxta-Birmingham and Hendre, Flintshire. They were the parents of three children, a daughter and two sons:

1, Margaret Parry (1827-1894), who married the Revd Evan Pughe (1807-1869); her son-in-law, Major Philip Halliley Carter (1866-1949) of Birmingham, continued the research into the history of the Heveningham family. Some of her descendants returned to live in the Lichfield area.
2, Robert Jones Parry, who died an infant.
3, (the Revd) William Warner Parry, (born 1832), a naval chaplain whose research into the Heveningham family tree is also an important source.

Margaret Warrners’s second husband was Samuel Banks of Rugeley, but he died soon after their marriage.

The Town Hall in Cashel, Co Tipperary … Margaret Warner’s husband, Sir John Judkin-Fitzgerald, was Mayor of Cashel and High Sheriff of Co Tipperary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Margaret was twice widowed and was 47 when she married the widowed 67-year-old Irish baronet, Sir John Judkin-Fitzgerald (1787-1860). He was her third husband and she was his third wife. He was the son of Sir Thomas Judkin-FitzGerald (1754-1810) of Cashel, Co Tipperary, who was given the title of baronet in 1801 as a reward for his role in suppressing the United Irish Rebellion of 1798 in Co Tipperary, his support for the Act of Union, and for his time as High Sheriff of Tipperary (1798-1803).

During the 1798 Rising, he became known as ‘Flogging Fitzgerald’, When he died in 1810, an obituary’ referred to his excessive use of the cat o’ nine tails as a magistrate, saying: ‘The history of his life and loyalty is written in legible characters on the backs of his fellow countrymen.’

Margaret’s husband, Sir John Judkin-Fitzgerald, was born on 27 August 1787. He was 23 when he succeeded to his father’s estates in Cashel and his title as the second baronet in 1810. He lived in Golden, near Cashel, and was the Mayor of Cashel and High Sheriff of Co Tipperary (1819-1820).

Sir John married his first wife, the widowed Elizabeth Moore (née Pennefather), in Cashel Cathedral in 1816. They were the parents of one child, Margaret’s future husband, Sir Thomas Judkin-Fitzgerald (1820-1864). Elizabeth died on 26 April 1835, and Sir John married his second wife, Geraldine Fitzgerald, on 10 November 1837. They were the parents of one child, Geraldine Caroline (1839-1916), and this second Lady Fitzgerald died in childbirth on 11 February 1839.

By the time Margaret Warner married Sir John married on 27 April 1854, he was selling off large tracts of land in furtive attempts to clear his mounting debts. The land he sold between 1852 and 1856 included over 3,800 acres in Co Wexford, Co Waterford, Co Tipperary and Co Cork, and he sold another 1,500 acres in Co Cork in 1857. He was living at Golden Hills, near Golden and Cashel, when that too was advertised for sale in 1858, though it remained unsold.

Less than six years after he married Margaret, and now heavily indebted, Sir John was drowned on 28 February 1860. He was onboard the PS Nimrod, an Irish paddle steamer plying between Cork and Liverpool, when it ran aground at St David’s Head in Wales, smashed into three pieces and sank with the loss of 45 lives, 25 crew and 20 passengers. He was 72, Margaret was 52 and now a widow for the third time.

Sir John’s title, his remaining lands and his crushing debts were inherited by his only son, Margaret’s stepson, Sir Thomas Judkin-FitzGerald (1820-1864), as the third baronet. He was a magistrate and a Deputy Lieutenant for Co Tipperary, and continued to live at Golden Hills, which had not yet been sold off.

Three years before succeeding his father, Sir Thomas’s eldest son and heir, nine-year-old John Judkin Judkin-FitzGerald, died in another family tragedy in 1857 when he accidentally hanged himself in the garden. Two stories try to explain what happened: one account says it was an accident while the boy was playing on a swing; the other version says he was showing his younger siblings how their great-grandfather hanged rebels in 1798 when he slipped and accidentally hanged himself.

Sir Thomas Judkin Fitzgerald drowned himself in the River Suir at Golden on the night of 26/27 April 1864 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

But the family tragedies do not end there. Margaret’s stepson, the boy’s father, Sir Thomas Judkin Fitzgerald, drowned himself in the River Suir at Golden on the night of 26/27 April 1864 when he was only 43.

A letter in the Clonmel Chronicle said reports that he was living in ‘greatly embarrassed circumstances’ and ‘greatly in debt’ were ‘much exaggerated’. But he was living with financial difficulties, finding he was liable for the debts of his father, Sir John Judkin Fitzgerald, totalling £7,000, or about £1.1 million today. Sir Thomas had insured his life for several thousand pounds so his family might not suffer from ever-mounting debts.

The jury reached a verdict of death as a result of temporary insanity. But local people tried to stop him being buried in consecrated ground in Ballygriffin churchyard because of his suicide. On the day of his funeral they packed the graveyard in Ballygriffin, filled the fresh-dug grave with stones, and blocked the priest from continuing with the burial. When he was buried eventually, his funeral was guarded by a large police presence.

By then, his step-mother, Margaret (Warner) Fitzgerald, now a widow for the third time, had moved to Moss Side, Manchester, with her son William Warner Parry and her step-daughter Geraldine Fitzgerald. Geraldine married Dr Walter Bourne in 1870 and they lived in Calcutta and later in Bradford. The Revd William Warner Parry, studied at Oxford, became a naval chaplain, and his research into the Heveningham family tree has been an important source.

Margaret died in genteel poverty in Southsea on 8 September 1883 at the age of 77. By then, her step-grandson, Sir Joseph Capel Judkin-FitzGerald (1853-1917), had succeeded to the Fitzgerald title as the fourth baronet as an eight-year-old in 1864. Golden Hills was advertised for sale again in 1878, when it was described as a ‘large castellated building’ with a drawing room opening into a conservatory, dining room and morning room, eight bedrooms and a servants’ hall. Most of the house had disappeared by the early 1940s, or was incorporated into a modern farmyard.

Sir Joseph Capel Judkin-Fitzgerald was the last and final baronet in his family. He lived a sad and dissolute life in England, accused of stealing jewellery, defrauding gullible divorcees, defaulting on loans and debts, leaving unpaid hotel and restaurant bills in London and Paris, and working as an unlicensed cab driver. He was threatened with imprisonment and was eventually declared bankrupt. He outlived his two sons, and when he died in 1917 his family title of baronet died out.

Saint Michael’s Church, Greenhill, Lichfield … many members of the Heveningham family are buried in the churchyard (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Meanwhile, some of Margaret Warner’s descendants through her first marriage to Robert Jones Parry would return to live in Lichfield and some of them had interesting roles in Church and academic life.

In 1847, her daughter Margaret Parry (1827-1894) married the Revd Evan Pughe (1807-1869), Vicar of Bangor, and later Rector of Llantrisant. Their large family included: Margaret Constance Pughe (1862-1930), whose family returned to live in Lichfield; and Alice Gertrude Pughe (1869-1892), whose husband Major Philip Halliley Carter (1866-1949) of Birmingham, continued the research into the Heveningham family history.

Margaret Constance Pughe (1862-1930) married the Very Revd Charles Walter Carrington (1859-1941) in Cambridge in 1890. He became the mission chaplain to the Bishop of Lichfield, and some of their children were born in Lichfield before the family moved to West Bromwich and then to New Zealand, where he was the Dean of Christchurch.

Margaret and Charles Carrington were the parents of a large family, including Philip Carrington (1892-1975), who was born in Lichfield and became Bishop of Quebec (1935-1960) and Metropolitan of Canada (1944-1960). Another son, the historian Charles Edmund Carrington (1897-1990), was Professor of History at Cambridge and the biographer of Rudyard Kipling and Graham Greene.

According to Margaret’s great-grandson, CE Carrington, writing in 1966, Lady Fitzgerald had ‘brought up her family to believe that they were the last survivors of one of the most ancient families in England, the Heveninghams of Heveningham, from whom she had inherited some old documents and a great deal of family pride.’

The two women known as Lady Fitzgerald had strong family links with Lichfield in the 19th century and both married Irish baronets. I sometimes wonder whether their paths ever crossed either in Lichfield or in Ireland, whether they knew each other, and whether they were ever confused with one another.

Most of the remains of the Fitzgerald estate in Golden, near Cashel, Co Tipperary, have had disappeared by the early 1940s and are difficult to find (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Sources and references include:

The Visitations of Staffordshire and Warwickshire.
Michael Greenslade, Catholic Staffordshire 1500-1850 (Gracewing, 2006).

The Heveningham family tree on Geni (last accessed 21 July 2025).
‘The Heveningham Family of Staffordshire’ (last accessed 21 July 2025).
The St. Leger-May Family Home Page (last accessed 15 May 2026).
‘Townships: Wall with Pipehill’, in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14, Lichfield, ed MW Greenslade (London, 1990), pp 283-294. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/vol14/pp283-294 (last accessed 21 July 2025).
‘Burntwood: Manors, local government and public services’, in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14, Lichfield, ed MW Greenslade (London, 1990), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/vol14/pp205-220 (last accessed 21 July 2025).
Aleyn Lyell Reade, Johnsonian Gleanings, ‘Notes on Dr Johnson’s Ancestors and Connexions’, pp 1-41 (London: 1909).