Lady Elizabeth Cust
(1830-1914)
23 May 1862

Volume 7, page 9, sitting number 8283. 

Identified in the Silvy daybooks as 'Lady E. Cust,' this is probably Lady Elizabeth Cust, wife of Reginald John Cust. 

Born Lady Elizabeth Caroline Bligh on 30 September 1830 at Cobham in Kent, she was the elder daughter of Edward Bligh, 5th Earl of Darnley and his wife the Honourable Emma Jane née Parnell.

On 13 December 1855 she married the barrister Reginald John Cust (later Sir Reginald John Cust), son of the Reverend and Honourable Henry Cockayne Cust and his wife Lady Anna Maria Elizabeth née Needham. Their marriage produced five children.

The family appear on the 1871 census living at 13 Eccleston Square in Pimlico [London]. Forty years later, when the 1911 census was taken, Sir Reginald and Lady Cust were still living at the same address with two unmarried daughters and five servants. 

Lady Elizabeth Caroline Cust died, aged 83, on 10 April 1914 at 32 St George's Square, Pimlico. According to a short report in the Nottingham Evening Post (11 April 1914): 'Lady Elizabeth Cust, widow of the late Sir Reginald Cust, died with painful suddenness in London yesterday morning. Lady Elizabeth Cust, who was 84 [sic], was walking to church with a lady companion. In Bessborough-street she had a seizure. She was lifted into a taxi-cab and driven back to her home close by in St George's-square, and died before a doctor arrived.'

She left an estate valued at £5029. She was buried in the churchyard of St Peter and St Paul at Belton in Lincolnshire.