Lady Mary Stanhope
(1844-1876)

[The portrait does not appear in any of the twelve volumes of the Silvy daybooks in the archives of the National Portrait Gallery in London. The sitting probably took place between July 1863 and June 1864, the period covered by the missing volume of the daybooks.]

Lady Mary Stanhope was the daughter of Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope. On 18 February 1868 she married Frederick Lygon, 6th Earl Beauchamp. Their marriage produced five children.

According to Lady St Helier, Lady Beauchamp was 'a remarkable woman, clever, accomplished, well educated, with a great deal of her father's gift of conversation, and love of Society.'

She died, aged 32, on 30 June 1876. 

'We regret to state that the Countess Beauchamp died yesterday morning at the residence of Earl Beauchamp, in Belgrave-square. Her ladyship had been in a weak state since her premature confinement on the 11th ult., but her illness was not considered dangerous till within the last two or three days. [...] She leaves two sons and three daughters, the last of whom was born iin 1874' (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 1 July 1876). 

Her husband remarried two years later and had another four children with his second wife.