Following the completion of No. 44, Lady Bell entertained in great style, hosting regular gatherings that often included Princess Amelia. Horace Walpole unkindly remarked upon the reserved atmosphere at No.
44, stating in 1754 that ‘we had a funeral loo last night in the great chamber at Lady Bel Finch’s’.175 Nonetheless it was a residence frequented by some of the most influential politicians in the country, including Sir Robert Walpole and Lady Bell’s old friend the Duke of Newcastle. Her property enabled her to informally exert political influence, as Elaine Chalus states, ‘She was at the centre of the political world in her own right and had her own networks of political contacts’.176 Such was her status that when her sister-in-law, Lady Charlotte Finch, née Fermor,177 attempted to present an illegitimate daughter of John Finch, Lady Bell’s brother, to the Princess Amelia, Lady Bell flatly refused. This ‘excellent civil war in the
170 TNA, PROB, 11/761, Will of William Kent, made 13 October 1743, codicil 10 April 1748, proved 18 June 1748, as quoted in Watkin, ‘Town Houses’, in Weber (ed.), William Kent, p. 172.
171 Catherine Arbuthnott, ‘Kent and Italy’, in Weber (ed.), William Kent, p. 79.
172 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to Lady Bute, 1 March 1752 in Robert Halsband (ed.), The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, vol. 3: 1752–1762 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 8.
173 Patricia L. Hamilton, ‘In Search of Lady Isabella’s Library; or, A Question of Access’, ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830, vol. 2, no. 1 (2012), p. 5.
174 Ibid., p. 1.
175 Horace Walpole to Conway, 5 June 1764, in Lewis (ed.), Horace Walpole's Correspondence, vol. 38, p. 397.
176 Chalus, Elite Women in English Political Life, p. 119.
177 Royal governess to the children of George III and Queen Charlotte, 1762-1793.
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house of Finch’ culminated in Lady Bell prohibiting William Finch (her brother and husband of Lady Charlotte) from ever entering No. 44, responding to his insult that she wished to cause Lady Charlotte to miscarry: ‘This is not the place to be indecent, and therefore I shall only tell you, that you are a rascal and a villain, and that if ever you dare to put your head into my house, I will kick you downstairs myself’.178 This quote demonstrates Lady Bell’s feisty and thoroughly independent nature, indicating that she was perfectly capable of determining Court politics if she desired. It also highlights the importance of No. 44 in her life, with non-admittance being the ultimate mark of displeasure. The pride that Lady Bell evidently felt for her residence is further demonstrated in her will, where she was determined that the beneficiary
‘make no Alteration in the building or disposition of the rooms on the first and second Floors of the said house or in the Furniture of the said Rooms’.179 Her will also made provision for £30 to be given to the beneficiary for the sole purpose of maintaining the property.180
This discussion regarding Lady Bell’s architectural exploits has sought to continue the argument that unmarried women, when the opportunity allowed, could instigate architecture on the grandest scale. Lady Bell’s house was on a par with the London houses of her male contemporaries, which further demonstrates that eighteenth-century women were equally desirous of displaying their wealth, status and taste as men.
Sadly, the correspondence between Lady Bell and her architect is missing and the level of control she sought to exercise over its design remains unclear. Nevertheless, Lady Bell’s architectural ambitions are beyond doubt. In furtherance of this argument, the following case study aims to argue that not only did unmarried women seek to display their architectural agency in London, but that they were equally capable of displaying such ambition at their ancestral seats – traditionally the preserve of the male head of the family.
178 Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, 10 April 1747, Arlington Street, in Lewis (ed.), Horace Walpole's Correspondence, vol. 19, pp. 389-90.
179 Northamptonshire Record Office, Finch Hatton Papers, FH 4208, as quoted in Rachel Stewart, The Town House in Georgian London (London: Yale University Press, 2009), p. 49.
180 Ibid.
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Chapter 4
Heiresses
Heiresses who remained unmarried prove interesting to this thesis because they had the advantage of possessing their own fortune, which thereby enabled them to interact with architecture on a scale often denied to dependent single women such as Anne Robinson. These women also had the advantage of not having to marry for money or rank, as their fortune and family name provided them with the necessary social status to move within the highest echelons of society. When an heiress inherited the ancestral seat, the likelihood of her adding her own architectural mark to the property increased significantly.
The patriarchal need to further the family name through the medium of architectural display was also shared by female inheritors of such country seats. As will be demonstrated at a later stage of this thesis, Jemima Yorke, Marchioness Grey, née Campbell, significantly added to and improved Wrest Park, her ancestral seat, both during her marriage and widowhood. It was her ambition to ensure that the Grey family name was not forgotten, despite the fact that the Dukedom of Kent had died out with her grandfather, Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent in 1740. Throughout her life she continued to remodel the house and re-landscape the park, to ensure that it remained at the forefront of fashion, whilst also retaining its illustrious heritage.
In a similar vein Lady Elizabeth Hastings (always known as Lady Betty Hastings), the heiress of the Hastings ancestral seat, Ledston Hall, and the acknowledged head of the Hastings family (whilst her half-brother Theophilus Hastings, 9th Earl of Huntingdon, was still in his minority), embarked on a series of significant improvements. Lady Betty remained unmarried throughout her life, using her fortune to commission a series of charitable works as well as the remodelling of Ledston Hall and re-landscaping of the gardens. The following case study will demonstrate that Lady Betty sought to engage with architecture not only to fulfil her Christian duty, but also to ensure that the Hastings family remained prominent amongst her contemporaries. Her commissions were calculated to modernise and beautify Ledston, whilst also ensuring that her superiority of taste was displayed for future generations to acknowledge. As the outright owner of the Ledston estate Lady Betty had the greatest architectural opportunity available to her, which was an unusual situation for a woman in the eighteenth century. Whether Lady Betty capitalised on this opportunity
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to display her architectural agency is significant, therefore, and it will be argued in this chapter that she often did so.
Fig. 6 Principal front of Ledston Hall, by John Preston Neal, 1822.