Mrs Blanche Saltmarshe
(1834-1880)
17 May 1862

Volume 6, page 318, sitting number 8140.

Born in 1834 at Kilnwick Percy in Yorkshire, Blanche Denison was the youngest daughter of Robert Denison, a 'Magistrate and Landed Proprietor' (1851 census) of Waplington Manor near Pocklington in Yorkshire. 

On 12 May 1852 at Allethorpe Chuch in Yorkshire she married her first cousin Philip Saltmarshe of Saltmarshe Hall near Howden in Yorkshire; her husband's family could trace their ancestry back to the time of the Norman Conquest. 

The marriage produced a great many children. At the time of the 1861 census the family comprised: Philip (7), Arthur (6), Roland (3), and Ernest (1). The household also included twelve servants, with more living nearby on the estate. These four sons were away from Saltmarshe Hall when the 1871 census was taken, presumably at boarding school, but the family had now grown to include: Hugh (9), Lionel (7), Blanche Violet (6), Harold (4) and Humphrey (2). The household now included thirteen live-in servants, with several more grooms, coachmen and gardeners living nearby. 

The family's only daughter Blanche Violet Saltmarshe died, aged 16, of typhoid fever on 26 March 1880. 

The following month Mrs Blanche Saltmarshe died, aged 45, at Saltmarshe Hall on 21 April 1880. Her death was reported three days later in the Yorkshire Gazette (24 April 1880): 'We regret to report the sudden death of Mrs Saltmarshe, wife of Mr Philip Saltmarshe, J.P., which took place at the family residence, Saltmarshe Hall, on Wednesday. Mrs Saltmarshe (who was a daughter of the late Mr Denison, of Waplington Manor) had been in delicate health for some months past, and the sudden and lamented death of Miss Saltmarshe, which took place at Torquay on March 27th [sic], no doubt tended to hasten her end. Great sympathy is universally expressed for Mr Saltmarshe, who has thus lost his only daughter and his wife in less than a month. His second son, Lieutenant Harry Saltmarshe, was also killed in South Africa less than two years ago. Mrs Saltmarshe was very highly esteemed in the Howdenshire district, and no death has occurred for some time past which has occasioned such general sorrow.'

[From an album compiled by the sitter's younger brother, George Robert Denison.]