Lady Emily Craven
(1846-1932)

Volume 1, page 155, sitting number 824.

Lady Emily Georgiana Craven was born in 1846, the fifth daughter of William Craven, 2nd Earl of Craven, and his wife Lady Emily Mary née Grimston. On 6 August 1868 she married Victor William Bates Van Der Weyer, eldest son of Jean Sylvain Van Der Weyer, the Belgian ambassador to the Court of St James’s. The marriage produced eight children.

She died on 6 January 1932.

An obituary appeared in the Rugby Advertiser (15 January 1932). 'The funeral took place at Windsor on Saturday afternoon of Lady Emily Georgina Van de Weyer, who was born at Coombe Abbey in 1846. She was the fifth and youngest daughter of the second Earl of Craven, who was Recorder of Coventry, and Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire. She was the last member of a family of four sons and five daughters, their mother before her marriage being Lady Emily M. Grimston, second daughter of the Earl of Verulam. 

'The five sisters all married well. The eldest, Elizabeth, became the wife of the third Earl of Wilton. The second, Evelyn Mary, had three husbands, i.e. Mr George John Brudenell-Bruce (eldest son of the third Marquess of Ailesbury), Captain the Hon. H. A. B. Coventry (who divorced her), and Captain G. W. Hutton Riddell. [...] The third sister, Blanche, was for about 65 years the devoted wife of the ninth Earl of Coventry, and they died within a week of each other, in 1930. The fourth sister, Beatrix Jane, married the fifth Earl of Cadogan; and the fifth sister was the wife of Mr Victor Bates Van de Weyer, whose father (M. Van de Weyer), was for many years Belgian Minister at the Court of St James's. Four of the sisters lived to long beyond their eightieth year, and the other died at the age of 63. The combined ages of the five at the time of their deaths was 404 years, giving the remarkable average of well over 80.'