Miss Alice Milbank
(1845-1902)
27 July 1864

Volume 12, page 148, sitting number 15,741.

Born on 16 October 1845 at Bedale in Yorkshire, Alice Frederica Milbank was the elder daughter of Frederick Acclom Milbank, who later served as the Member of Parliament (Liberal) for the North Riding of Yorkshire between 1865 and 1885. He was created a Baronet in 1882. Her mother was Alexina Harriet Elizabeth née Don, daughter of Sir Alexander Don of Newton Don, Roxburghshire.

Alice was baptised at Bedale on 29 November 1845.

In 1881 she was still unmarried and living with her parents and younger sister at 2 Moreton Gardens in Kensington. The household included 13 servants, among them a dressmaker, a butler, an under-butler and two footmen.

On 2 August 1881, at the age of 42, she became the second wife of widower David Dale, an English industrialist and railway magnate who introduced the principle of arbitration to industrial disputes.

Her husband was created a Baronet in 1895 and Alice became Lady Dale.

When the census was taken in 1891, she and her lady’s maid were staying at Brown’s Hotel on Albemarle Street in Mayfair.

At the time of the 1901 census, Lady Dale was at West Lodge in Darlington, her residence in Yorkshire.

Lady Alice Dale died, aged 57, on 25 November 1902 at Eastbourne in Sussex.

‘The death occurred at Eastbourne yesterday of Lady Dale, wife of Sir David Dale, of Darlington. On the reception of the news in Darlington, blinds were drawn at Pease and Partners’ offices, and other tokens of respect were shown. […] Lady Dale took a great interest in the public, social, philanthropic, and religious life of Darlington, and for some years she had also been a member of the Board of Guardians. Her ladyship sometimes appeared on the Liberal platform, though her interest was chiefly centred in the work of the Darlington Women’s Liberal Association, of which she had been for some years president’ (Shields Daily Gazette, 26 November 1902).