Lady Palk's children

[This image does not appear in the Silvy daybooks and the sitters in this portrait were unidentified in the album in which the carte was found, but it was next to the preceding carte listed on this page, which does appear in the daybooks, identified as 'Lady Palk's child.' The preceding sitting in the daybooks is identified as 'Lady Palk and children,' although only an image of Lady Palk alone appears. The identification of these three sitters as 'Lady Palk's children' is therefore conjectural, but probably sound.]

Burke's Peerage (1882) lists six children for Sir Lawrance and Lady Palk: Lawrence Hesketh (born 1846), Robert Henry (born 1848), Walter George (born 1849), Edward Arthur (born in 1854), Annette Maria (no d.o.b. given) and Evelyn Elizabeth (no d.o.b. given).

According to Iain Fraser, author of a forthcoming book on the Palk family, Annette Maria Palk was born in September 1851 and Evelyn Elizabeth Palk was born in 1854. 

The 1861 census shows the Palks living at Lyncourt, Tormoham, Torquay, Devon, and that the girls were eight and six at the time of the census (April 1861). Given that this portrait dates from the summer of 1860, the girl is more likely to be Annette Maria Palk, who married Alexander Baird Esq. of Urie, Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, on 16 July 1873, and died on 21 May 1884, leaving issue. The younger boy in the portrait is almost certainly Edward Arthur Palk, who grew up to become a Captain in the 4th Batt. Devonshire Regt. and married in 1883 Charlotte Frances, daughter of the Reverend Frederick Shelley, 8th Bart. of Shobrooke. The other boy could be either Robert Henry (who joined the 23rd Fulsilers and died 6 March 1878), or Walter George (who became a Lieutenant in the Royal Horse Artillery).