The Honourable Mrs Clifford
(1836-1913)
22 May 1861

Volume 3, page 287, sitting number 3831.

Born in 1836 at Bridgewater in Somerset, Josephine Elizabeth Anstice was the daughter of the classical scholar Joseph Anstice, later professor of classical literature at King’s College, London. She was baptised at Enmore in Somerset on 23 August 1836. Her mother was Elizabeth Spencer Anstice née Ruscombe.

On 21 March 1857 at the Church of the Assumption in Dublin, she married Major the Honourable Henry Hugh Clifford, third surviving son of Lord Clifford, 7th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh. An officer of the Rifle Brigade, her husband had fought in the Crimean War and won the Victoria Cross for his gallantry at Inkerman.

1n 1871 the couple were living at 33 Redcliffe Gardens in South Kensington with four daughters, two sons, Josephine’s mother, and four servants.

In 1879 her husband was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George and Mrs Clifford became Lady Clifford. 

The Honourable Sir Henry Clifford died on 12 April 1883, leaving an estate valued at £1188. The abstract of his will gives Lady Clifford’s address as Val Rive, a large house at Dinan in Brittany.

Lady Clifford appears on the 1911 census living in a grace and favour apartment at Hampton Court Palace with her unmarried daughter Sibyl Mary Clifford, aged 46, and one servant. According to her census return, she had had nine children, of which seven were still living.

She died at Hampton Court, aged 76, on 15 January 1913, leaving an estate valued at £2705.

[From an album compiled by Isabel Westmacott, daughter of Horatio Westmacott, Rector of Chastleton in Oxfordshire, and granddaughter of the sculptor Sir Richard Westmacott.]