Miss Edith G. Turnor
(1844-1926)
9 July 1861

Volume 4, page 189, sitting number 4828.

Born on 20 January 1844, Edith Georgiana Turnor was the eldest daughter of the wealthy landowner Christopher Turnor of Stoke Rochford Hall, who represented the Conservative interest as Member of Parliament for South Lincolnshire between 1841 and 1847. Her mother was Lady Caroline née Finch-Hatton, daughter of the 10th Earl of Winchilsea. 

On 16 September 1868 at Stoke Rochford she married Frederick Archibald Vaughan Campbell, who as the eldest son of the Earl of Cawdor used the courtesy title Viscount Emlyn. Their marriage produced ten children.

Her husband succeeeded as the 3rd Earl Cawdor on 29 March 1898.

Lady Cawdor died, aged 82, on 2 September 1926, leaving an estate valued at £8192.

The Grantham Journal (11 September 1926) gave a few more details of her life than most of the other numerous newspapers which carried obituaries. 'The death occurred on Friday week, at her Carmarthenshire seat, Golden Grove, at the age of 82, of Edith Georgiana, widow of the third Earl Cawdor and grandmother of the present Earl. Eldest daughter of Christopher Turnor, of Stoke Rochford, and granddaughter of the ninth [sic] Earl of Winchilsea, she married Viscount Emlyn in 1868, thirty years before he was to succeed his father in an earldom which has had an otherwise rapid succession, for there have been five holders since its creation in 1827. The Viscount and Viscountess had six sons and four daughters, and their eldest son, the fourth Earl, born in 1870, after succeeeding to the title in 1911, only lived three years to enjoy it. The third Earl will be remembered as chairman of the Great Western Railway, and for his brief but historical nine-month's tenure of office as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1905, when he produced the well-known "Cawdor Memorandum," a bold and clear formulation of future requirements in the way of armoured ships. Since his death most of the Countess's time has been spent in Wales. The funeral took place on Tuesday at Stackpole, Pembroke.'

[From an album probably compiled by the sitter's aunt, the Honourable Mrs Marianne Turnor née Macdonald, wife of Captain Henry Martin Turnor.]