Lady Cecelia Molyneux
(1838-1910)

Volume 1, page 150, sitting number 805.

Lady Cecilia Maria Charlotte Molyneux was born in 1838, the daughter of Charles William Molyneux, 3rd Earl of Sefton and Mary Augusta née Gregg-Hopwood. On 12 July 1869 she married Hugh Richard Dawnay, 8th Viscount Downe. The marriage produced five children. In 1897 her husband became 1st Baron of Danby and subsequently sat in the House of Lords.

Viscountess died on 26 May 1910. A short obituary appeared in the Derby Daily Telegraph (26 May 1910). 'Viscountess Downe died at Dingley Hall, Market Harborough, this morning from pneumonia. The deceased, who was 70, was a daughter of the third Earl of Sefton. She was formerly a lady of the bed-chamber to Queen Victoria. The Viscountess is survived by her husband Major-General Viscount Downe and five children.'

According to a far longer obituary in the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer (27 May 1910): 'Her death will be much lamented, not only in Yorkshire, with which her husband is so intimately associated, but in the wider circle of society in which she had been for so long a period a popular figure. In the numerous public appointments, military and otherwise, which Lord Downe has held, she has loyally co-operated, and by her attractive personality has lent grace to many a public function. She was herself well known in Court circles in the reign of Queen Victoria, to whom she was for a long period one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber, and the position which she gained, not merely in the Royal Household but in the Sovereigns's favour, was shown by the fact that Her Majesty conferred upon her the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, in the third class, which is the senior class below royalty itself.

'In North Yorkshire Lady Downe had a large circle of friends in all classes of the community, being frequently resident for a great part of the year at Danby Lodge, Grosmont, one of the family seats. She took an active interest in many local institutions, charitable and philanthropic, and in political matters she sympathised warmly with her husband, who is Chairman of the Unionist party in the district. She was herself vice-president of the Whitby and District Women's Conservative Association, and in the electoral campaign of last January she rendered valuable help to the cause. The news of her death was received yesterday as the members of the Whitby Divisional Conservative Association were assembling for their annual meeting at Scarborough, and to mark their sympathy with Lord Downe, and their respect for the deceased lady, the meeting decided to curtail the programme, and with silent acquiescence passed a vote of condolence. Mr Gervase Beckett, M.P., expressed the general feeling of the gathering when he said how keenly they all regretted the bereavement that had fallen upon Lord Downe and his family, and how much those who knew her Ladyship respected and loved her.'