John Malcolm and Miss Isabelle Malcolm
(1805-1893 and 1842-1924)
8 April 1861

Identified on the album page as 'Mr and Miss Malcolm,' given the context of the album this is John Malcolm, 14th of Poltalloch, and Isabella Louisa Malcolm, his only daughter by Isabella Harriet née Wingfield, who died on 30 September 1858.

Father and daughter appear on the 1861 census, living together at 7 Great Stanhope Street, Mayfair. John Malcolm described himself as 'Deputy Lieutenant & Magistrate for / [the] Counties of Kent & Argyll, N.B.' His daughter Isabella was 19 years old at the time of the census, so was born in or about 1842. Both father and daughter gave 'St George Hanover Square' as their place of birth. Also present on the night of the census were seventeen live-in servants, including a butler, an under-butler, two footmen, two grooms, a coachman and an under-coachman.

In 1871 Isabella was still unmarried, living at 7 Great Stanhope Street with her older brother William R. Malcolm, an 'Assistant Secretary [to the] Board of Trade.'

On 3 August 1875 'at St Paul's, Knightsbridge, Alfred Erskine Hardy, third son of the Right Hon. Gathorne Hardy [married] Isabella Louisa, only daughter of John Malcolm, Esq., of Poltalloch.' Styled The Honourable from 1878, the same year that he assumed by Royal Licence the additional surname Gathorne, her husband was for many years a Conservative Member of Parliament. 

The following obituary appeared in the Aberdeen Evening Express (1 June 1893): 'Mr John Malcolm of Poltalloch, one of the most respected landlords in the West Highlands, whose death is announced to-day at the patriarchal age of 88, was the chief of the Argyllshire sept, the Clan Challum, or the McCallums. The family name was formerly M'Callam, the first to adopt Malcolm having been Dugald M'Callum, who inherited the estate of Poltalloch in 1779. The estate now extends to 82,579 acres in Argyllshire, and was valued some years ago at over £18,000. Besides his Highland property, the late Mr Malcolm possessed the estate of Lamorbey, in Kent, which came into the family through the deceased gentleman's mother.'

The following month, the Dundee Evening Telegraph (17 July 1893) informed its readers that the late John Malcolm's art collection was on loan to the British Museum. 'It is announced that the famous Art Collection which belonged to the late Mr Malcolm of Poltalloch is to be made available to the British public. The collection is now on loan in the British Museum, and though it has been left unconditionally to the present Laird of Poltalloch, he has decided to allow it to remain under certain conditions in its temporary location, and to permit students to have free access thereto. The collection was brought together in the course of many years by Mr Malcolm, who was as well known to Continental dealers in art as any of the great Parisian collectors. There is not, perhaps, in the Kingdom a more varied and extensive array of rare etchings and prints than in the Poltalloch collection; and the present proprietor is worthy of praise for the liberality with which he has placed these works within the reach of students who could not otherwise have had the opportunity of studying them.'

The Honourable Isabella Louisa Gathorne-Hardy died, aged 83, on 17 August 1924 at Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire. She left an estate valued at £9548.

[From an album probably compiled by either George Charles Pratt (1799-1866), 2nd Marquess Camden or by his son, John Charles Pratt (1840-1872), from 1866 3rd Marquess Camden.]