Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.
Emma Hamilton
April 26 1765 to January 15 1815
Born the daughter of a blacksmith, died in infamy, the avowed mistress of England’s hero, Horatio Nelson.
At the age of 12 she was a maid at the Hawarden, Wales house of for Doctor Honoratus Leigh Thomas, a surgeon in Chester. She then worked for the Budd family in Chatham place and helped a fellow maid, Jane Powell rehearse to become an acres. She then became a maid at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane to such notables as Mary Robinson. From being a maid she advanced to model and dancer. At the age of 15 she met Sir Harry Featherstonhaugh. She became an entertainer for him, dancing naked on the dining room table for he and his friends. At Harry’s Uppark estate in the South Downs she met the second son of the Earl of Warwick, the honorable Charles Francis Greville. She also conceived a child by Sir Harry. (1781.)
Emma was sent off to London until the baby was born but now she became the mistress of Greville. The child, when it was born was taken to be raised by the Blackburn family. Emma saw her daughter frequently until those periods when she was in debt. The girl became a companion or governess in her later life.
Greville had Emma sit for George Romney and kept her as his mistress. Romney now took on Emma as one of his chief inspirations. She is in many of the most famous paintings by Romney.
By 1783, Greville needed to find a rich wife, so he passed Emma to his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, the British Envoy to Naples. Hamilton was glad for Greville’s marriage meant he did not have to support his nephew any longer either. In a transaction, Hamilton acquired Emma much as one buys a piece of pottery. Emma had no knowledge of the transaction, and was furious about it. But she did become Hamilton’s mistress.
She created a new cross between posture, dance and acting for his guests and it was a sensation. Other artists took on this type of performance. In 1791, Hamilton married Emma in England. He was 60 and she 26.
And then in 1793, she met Horatio Nelson at the court of the King and Queen of Naples. Nelson came back to Naples in 1798 after the Battle of the Nile, and she nursed him back to health. Then for his 40th birthday she had a party with 1800 guests to celebrate it. Sir William even seems then to have tolerated and encouraged the affair that developed between Emma and Nelson.
That Emma and Nelson could have such an endorsement may stem from the age of Sir William, and that Nelson was the most famous Briton in the world now that he had won the Battle of the Nile, and through George Romney and her founding of a new art form, and her great beauty, Emma was the most famous female Briton. (DWW-The two most important Britons, even moreso than any King or Prime Minister, right at that moment) And William Hamilton was a collector. These two were under his roof, carrying on. He was able to show them off.
Emma was now in 1799 the close personal friend and advisor to the Queen of Naples, Marie Carolina whose sister, Marie Antoinette had been executed by the French. It was probably not impossible to tell those of Naples that the French were the great enemy. Those who did want the French were the aristocrats, not the people or the royals. The royal family fled to Sicily. Nelson tried to aid the Royal family and put down this aristocratic revolution. He was recalled to Britain, though and he, Emma and Sir William took the longest possible route back.
They arrived in Britain in 1800 to a hero’s welcome. They lived together opening and the affair became public knowledge. The Admiralty sent Nelson back to sea.
Now Emma and Nelson wished to marry, but they would not do so until Sir William died, who they both cared for very much. Nor could Nelson get a divorce from his wife unless he had another great victory. In 1801, Emma gave birth to her and Nelson’s daughter, Horatia. Nelson bought a house in Wimbledon, Merton Place, where they all could live. They became the papers celebrity sensation of the day. Emma was no longer the great beauty, and they did try to live a quieter life.
Sir William died in 1803 and Nelson left for the sea again. Emma was pregnant once more. The child died a few weeks after it was born. Emma began to spend lavishly and gamble. Then Nelson died at Trafalgar.
Now she ran through the remaining money and became heavily in debt. Merton Place was left to her and Emma tried to maintain it as a monument to Nelson. It too sent her into further debt. She had now returned to poverty and drank herself to death in Calais. Horatia married the Reverend Phillip Ward and had ten children.
Previous Notables (Click to see the Blog):
There will be many other notables coming, a full and changing list can be found here on the blog as I keep adding to it. The list so far is:
Hannah More
John Phillip Kemble
Ann Hatton
Stephen Kemble
Harriet Mellon
Mary Robinson
Wellington (the Military man)
Nelson
Howe
St. Vincent
Packenham
General Banastre Tarleton
Henry Paget
Stapleton Cotton
Thomas Picton
Constable
Lawrence
Cruikshank
Gillray
Reynolds
Rowlandson
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Sir Marc Brunel
Marquis of Stafford George Leveson-Gower
George Stephenson
William Huskisson
Robert Stephenson
Fanny Kemble
Mary Shelley
Ann Radcliffe
Paul III Anton, Prince Esterházy
Charles Arbuthnot
Thomas Egerton, 2nd Earl of Wilton
Henry Herbert Southey
John Nash
Matthew Gregory Lewis
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Thomas Hope
William Beechey
Scrope Davies
Henry Holland
Sir Walter Scott
Lord Elgin
Jeffery Wyatville
Hester Thrale
William Windham
Madame de Stael
James Boswell
Edward Eliot
George Combe
Sir Harry Smith
Juana Maria de Los Dolores de Leon (Lady Smith)
Duke of Argyll, George William Campbell (1766-1839)
Lord Barrymore, Richard Barry (1769-1794)
Lord Bedford, Francis Russell (1765-1802)
Mr. G. Dawson Damer (1788-1856)
Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish (1748-1811)
Lord Foley, Thomas Foley (1780-1833)
Colonel George Hanger (c.1751-1824)
Lord Hertford, Francis Seymour-Ingram (1743-1822)
Lord Yarmouth, Francis Charles Seymour-Ingram (1777-1842)
Edward “Golden Ball” Hughes (1798-1863)
Earl of Jersey, George Bussey Villiers (1735-1805)
Sir John , John Lade (1759-1838)
Duke of Norfolk, Charles Howard (1746-1815)
Duke of York , Frederick Augustus Hanover (1763-1827)
Louis Philippe Joseph, Duc de Chartres, acceded 1785 as Duc d’ Orleans (1747-1793)
Louis Philippe, Duc de Chartres, acceded 1793 as Duc d’ Orleans (1773-1850)
Captain John (Jack) Willett Payne (1752-1803)
Viscount Petersham, Charles Stanhope(1780-1851)
Duke of Queensberry, William Douglas (1724-1810)
Duke of Rutland, John Henry Manners(1778-1857)
Lord Sefton, William Philip Molyneux (1772-1838)
Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour (1759-1801)
Sir Lumley St. George Skeffington Baronet (1771 – 1850)
Lord Worcester, Henry Somerset (1766-1835)
Lord Worcester, Henry Somerset (1792-1853)
Hon. Frederick Gerald aka “Poodle” Byng
Edward Pellew
Thomas Cochrane
Warren Hastings
Mendoza
Edmund Burke
The Dandy Club
Beau Brummell
William Arden, 2nd Baron Alvanley
Henry Mildmay
Henry Pierrepoint
Patronesses of Almacks
Emily Lamb, Lady Cowper
Amelia Stewart, Viscountess Castlereagh
Sarah Villiers, Countess of Jersey
Maria Molyneux, Countess of Sefton
Mrs. Drummond Burrell
Dorothea Lieven, Countess de Lieven, wife of the Russian Ambassador
Countess Esterhazy, wife of the Austrian Ambassador
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