Lady Anne Pleydell-Bouverie
(1843-1915)
16 July 1861

Volume 4, page 220, sitting number 4952.

[Incorrectly identified as 'Miss Folkestone' in the Silvy daybooks, presumably because 'Viscount Folkestone' is the courtesy title of the eldest son of the Earl of Radnor.]

Born in 1843, Anne Pleydell-Bouverie was the daughter of Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, from 1869 the 4th Earl of Radnor. She appears on the 1861 census, living at the seat of the Pleydell-Bouveries, Coleshill House in Berkshire, which was one of the finest examples of 17th-century architecture in the country until it burnt down in 1952.

On 3 September 1867 she married the Scottish Liberal politician Archibald Alexander Speirs of Elderslie House and Houston House, Renfrewshire [Scotland]. They had one son, Alexander Archibald Hagart Speirs (died 1958).

Lady Anne Speirs died on 18 September 1915 at Neilston House, Neilston, East Renfrewshire. For some reason, the abstract of her (sealed) will calls her 'the right honourable Anne commonly called lady Anne.' As the daughter of an Earl who had married a commoner, she was quite entitled to use the honorific prefix 'Lady' before her name.