Lady Wenlock
(1824-1899)
4 July 1865

Volume 12, page 342, sitting number 16,516.

Born on 9 July 1824, Lady Elizabeth Grosvenor was one of the eight daughters of Richard Grosvenor, from 1845 the 2nd Marquess of Westminster, and Lady Elizabeth Mary née Levinson-Gower, daughter of the 1st Duke of Sutherland.

On 28 November 1846 she married Beilby Richard Lawley, son of the 1st Baron Wenlock. Their marriage produced six sons and four daughters.

Her husband succeeded his father in 1852, becoming the 2nd Baron Wenlock.

The family appear on the 1861 census living a Escrick Park in Yorkshire. The household included a governess and an impressive 34 servants (with more living in outlying buildings on the estate), among them a butler, an under-butler, a valet, two footmen, four grooms and two coachmen. When Lord Wenlock died in 1880 his estate was valued at £250,000.

When the census was taken in 1891 Lady Wenlock was living with or visiting her deceased husband’s brother, a clerk in Holy Orders, at Exminster in Devon.

Lady Wenlock died, aged 75, on 16 December 1899 at Escrick Villa in Yorkshire, presumably a dower house at Escrick Park. She left an estate valued at £4757.

‘The Dowager Lady Wenlock was a lady of charitable and benevolent disposition, and her good works were done in a quiet and unostentatious way. Both at Escrick and in York her ladyship’s removal will be sadly missed. Her solicitude for the welfare of those around her frequently placed her in close personal contact with them, and she was beloved on all hands. The County Hospital, the Blue and Grey Coat Schools, the Charity Organisation Society, the Wilberforce School for the Blind, the Diocesan Branch of the Women’s Home Mission Association, the Association for the Care of Young Girls, and other valued institutions in York had the advantage of her ladyship’s personal interest and support’ (York Gazette, 23 December 1899).

[From an album compiled by George Robert Denison.]