Miss Elizabeth Dunbar Masson
(1830-1919)
25 November 1861

Volume 5, page 265, sitting number 6556.

Born at Blackheath on 7 November 1830, Elizabeth Dunbar Masson was the daughter of merchant John Masson and his wife Margaret née Dunbar.

In 1861 she was living at 50 Porchester Terrace in Bayswater, the home of her uncle, the fabulously wealthy shipowner and merchant Duncan Dunbar. 

On his death in 1862 Elizabeth inherited a share of her uncle’s £1,000,000 estate.

In 1871 she was still living at 50 Porchester Terrace, only now she was the head of the household. Also present on the night of the census were her sister Annie with her husband Otto von Gilsa and their two children. The household included a paid companion and nine servants.

Her name appears occasionally in various Scottish newspapers at the beginning of the 20th century, suggesting that she spent most of her time at her Scottish residence, Forres House in Forres, Morayshire. She was also mentioned in 1916 in an article on the Dowager Grand Duchess of Baden: ‘Karlsruhe is famous for its old ladies, and they are not all German. There is Miss Dunbar Masson who is over eighty, whose mother built the English church at Stuttgart’ (Evening Despatch, 28 January 1916).

Elizabeth Dunbar Masson never married. She died, aged 88, on 10 October 1919 at Kensington Palace Mansions, London. The abstract of her will lists three addresses for her: Queen Anne’s Mansions, Westminster; 4 The Leas, Folkestone; and Forres House, Forres, Morayshire. She left an estate valued at £2141, a surprisingly small sum considering the size of her uncle’s estate.