Miss Blanche Guest
(1848-1919)
3 May 1862

Volume 6, page 265, sitting number 7928.

Born at Canford in Dorset in or around 1848, Blanche Vere Guest was the daughter of the phenomenally wealthy ironmaster Sir Josiah John Guest, 1st Baronet, and Lady Charlotte Elizabeth née Bertie (later Lady Charlotte Schreiber).

She appears on the 1861 census living with her mother and her step-father, Charles Schreiber, at Exeter House, Putney Heath.

On 22 April 1875 she married Edward Ponsonby, son of Reverend Walter William Brabazon Ponsonby, 7th Earl of Bessborough. At the death of her father-in-law on 24 February 1906, her husband succeeded as 8th Earl of Bessborough and she became the Countess of Bessborough. She was invested as a Commander, Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1918.

Lady Bessborough died on 11 October 1919 at Pilltown in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and was buried there four days later.