Miss Mary Jane Gore-Langton
(1848-1923)
[8 March 1867]

[The sitter is identified by an inked inscription verso in a period hand.]

Born in 1848, Mary Jane Gore-Langton was the eldest daughter of William Gore-Langton of Newton Park, Somerset, who twice served as the Member of Parliament for Tanton. Her mother was Lady Anna Eliza Mary Temple-Grenville, daughter of the second Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. Her brother became the 4th Earl Temple of Stowe in 1892, at which point she received the rank of an earl’s daughter.

She was presented at court, almost certainly in the dress she is seen wearing here, by her mother Lady Anne Gore-Langton on 8 March 1867.

In 1871 she and her parents, along with an older sister, were living at Wotton House in Buckinghamshire, the residence of her uncle, the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos.

On 1 October 1872 she married barrister-at-law Henry Mills Skrine, son of Henry Duncan Skrine of Warleigh Manor House. The marriage produced four daughters and one son, Henry Langton Skrine, born in 1880, who served as a Captain in the Somerset Light Infantry

In 1911 the couple were living at Warleigh Manor near Bath. The household included two unmarried daughters and seven servants.

Colonel Henry Mills Skrine died on 7 March 1915 at the age of 70. He left an estate valued at £38,922. Lady Mary Jane Skrine died on 9 May 1923 at Warleigh Manor and was buried in the churchyard of St Swithun’s Church in Bathford. Her estate was valued at £21,094.

‘The death occurred at Warleigh Manor, near Bath, on Wednesday night of Lady Mary Skrine, widow of Mr H.M. Skrine, D.L. Lady Mary was the eldest daughter of the late Mr W.H. Powell Gore-Langton, M.P., of Newton Park, Bath, and Hatch, near Taunton, by his marriage with Lady Anne Temple [sic], daughter of the second Duke of Buckingham. In 1889, on the death of her uncle, by special remainder, the Earldom of Temple devolved on her brother, and she became Lady Mary. Mr Skrine, to whom she was married in 1872, died in 1915, and, in the same year, six months later, their only son, Captain Henry Langton Skrine, was killed in France, fighting with the 6th Somersets. Lady Mary was deeply interested in Red Cross work in Somerset, in Queen Mary’s Needlework Guild, and in the Bath Nursing Association, of which she was president.' (Western Daily Press, 11 May 1923).