Miss Sabine Dent
(1841-1931)
16 January 1862

Volume 5, page 219, sitting number 6770.

[The sitter is identified as 'Miss Sabine Dent' in the Silvy daybooks. There is also an inked inscription in a period hand on the carte reading 'Sabine Dent.']

Born in Paddington on 13 August 1841, Sabine Dent was the daughter of Thomas Dent, one of the founders of Dent & Co., which was amongst the wealthiest British merchant firms active in China during the nineteenth century. Her mother was Sabine Ellen née Robarts, daughter of James Thomas Robarts, another major importer of opium into China. 

She appears on the 1861 census living with her family at 12 Hyde Park Gardens in London. The household included her father, who described himself as an ‘East Indies Merchant,’ her mother Sabine, her six brothers, her two younger sisters, and eleven servants, including a butler and a footman. 

On 1 December 1870 in Paddington she married Captain (later Admiral) Richard Charles Mayne of the Royal Navy, son of Sir Richard Mayne, the first joint commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Earlier in his naval career he had been involved in the exploration of British Columbia, mapping hitherto unknown parts of the colony. Following his retirement from the Navy in 1879 he was elected the Member of Parliament (Conservative) for Pembroke and Haverfordwest, a constituency he served until his death in 1892.

According to the 1911 census, their marriage had produced four chidlren, all still living in 1911. 

Mrs Sabine Mayne died on 26 June 1931 at 101 Queen’s Gate in South Kensington and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. She left an estate valued at £4320.