Lady Dartmouth
(1822-1900)

On 9 June 1846, Lady Augusta Finch married William Walter Legge (1823-1891), 5th Earl of Dartmouth and MP for South Staffordshire.

The Dowager Lady Dartmouth died on 1 December 1900.

'The painfully sudden death of the Dowager Countess of Dartmouth, which occurred on Saturday night at Woodsome Hall, near Hudderfield, was the subject of a Coroner's inquiry held yesterday afternoon. Evidence was given by one of her daughters, the Lady Frances Legge, the butler and Dr Draper, of Almondbury, and a verdict of "Accidental death" was returned. Lady Dartmouth was seventy-eight years of age, and in spite of the burden of her years, had enjoyed remarkably good health up to Friday evening last, when the accident happened which proved fatal. About half-past ten o'clock that night she ascended the stairs with Lady Frances Legge, and half-way up fell, and lapsed into unconsciousness. Medical aid was sought, but without recovering her senses she died the following night, in the presence of the medical man, the Ladies Frances, Georgina, and Elizabeth Legge (the three daughters of the Countess) and the Earl of Dartmouth, who, summoned by telegraph, arrived just before death took place. The deceased was the eldest daughter of the fifth Earl of Aylesford, and as Lady Augusta Finch was married to the late Earl of Dartmouth in 1846. On the death of the Earl in 1891, the Dowager Countess left the principal family seat at Patshull, near Wolverhampton, and came to reside at Woodsome Hall, where the present Earl, as Viscount Lewisham, had lived. She lived in comparative retirement with her daughters at Woodhouse [sic], though she took a sympathetic interest in Church of England work at Almondbury and Farnley Tyas. [...] Our Wolverhampton correspondent telegraphs that the remains of the late Countess will be buried tomorrow in the same grave as her husband, who died in 1891, and is interred in an earth grave in the tiny churchyard at Patshull. There was hardly a charitable institution in Staffordshire that the deceased Countess, whilst residing at Patshull, was not intimately associated with.'