Countess Cowley
(1807-1885)
11 July 1861

Volume 4, page 205, sitting number 4891.

Presumably the wife of Earl Cowley, the British ambassador to the Emperor of the French. Born Olivia Cecilia Fitzgerald, daughter of Charlotte, Baroness of Ros, on 23 October 1833 she married Henry Richard Charles Wellesley, who succeeded his father as 2nd Baron Cowley in 1847 and was created Viscount Dangan and Earl Cowley on 4 April 1857.

The Right Honourable Dowager Countess Cowley died, aged 78, on 21 April 1885 at 20 Albemarle Street, London. Her personal estate was valued at £2854. According to the Morning Post (24 April 1885), she was 'the widow of Henry Richard Charles first Earl Cowley, K.G., G.C.B., sometime ambassador at Paris, who died in July last year. She was the second daughter of the late Lord Henry Fitz-Gerald and Charlotte Baroness de Ros. By her marriage with Lord Cowley she had issue, three sons, the present Earl Cowley, Hon. Cecil Charles F., and Colonel Hon. Frederick Wellesley, and two daughters, Lady Feodorowna, married to the Hon. Francis Leveson Bertie, and Lady Sophia, married to the Earl of Hardwicke.'