Viscountess Sydney
(1810-1893)

Volume 1, page 257, sitting number 1206.

Born in 1810, Lady Emily Caroline Paget was the daughter of Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, and Lady Charlotte née Cadogan. On 4 August 1832 she married John Robert Townsend, 3rd Viscount Sydney, later created 1st Earl Sydney on 27 February 1874. Their marriage was childless.

Her husband was a British Liberal politician. In a ministerial career spanning over thirty years, he was twice Lord Chamberlain of the Household, the most senior position in the Royal Household, and twice Lord Steward of the Household.

Earl Sydney died on 14 February 1890, when all his titles became extinct. Countess Sydney died on 9 March 1893. On her death Frognal House, the family seat of the Townshends, passed to a nephew, Robert Marsham, on condition that he add Townshend to his name.

'We regret to have to announce that Countess Sydney died at three o'clock this morning at Frognal, Chichester. Countess Sydney had reached the age of eighty-three, having been born in 1810. She was a daughter of the first Marquess of Anglesey, and when twenty-two years old, married the first and last Earl Sydney. Had her husband lived two years longer Lord and Lady Sydney would have been able to celebrate their golden wedding. Earl Sydney, it will be remembered, was Groom-in-Waiting to George IV, Lord-in-Waiting to William IV, and at various time Lord Chamberlain and Lord Steward to the Queen. He died in 1890' (St James's Gazette, 9 March 1893). 

[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.]