The Honourable Mrs Henry Selwin
(1821-1865)
28 March 1861
Volume 3, page 15, sitting number 2760.
[Identified as ‘Mrs Henry Selwin’ in the Silvy daybooks, the sitter is identified as ‘Sarah E. Selwin’ on the album page.]
Born in London in 1821, the Honourable Sarah Elizabeth Copley was the eldest daughter and co-heiress of Lord Chancellor John Copley, who was raised to the peerage as Lord Lyndhurst in 1827.
On 8 January 1850 she married the Conservative politician Henry John Selwin, only son of Sir John Thomas Selwin, 6th Baronet, and his wife Isabella, daughter of General John Leveson-Gower. From 1869 to 1892 he was known as Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbotson. On his retirement from the House of Commons in 1892 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Rookwood, of Rookwood Hall and Down Hall, both in the County of Essex.
The couple appear on the 1861 census living at 25 Charles Street in Mayfair. Henry John Selwin described himself as ‘Magistrate of the County of Essex, son of John Thomas Selwin, landscape painter.’ Five servants completed the household, including a footman and coachman.
The Honourable Mrs Selwin died, aged 44, on 25 June 1865 at St George’s Terrace, Queen’s Gate, South Kensington.
According to a brief obituary in the Morning Post (28 June 1845): ‘The Hon. Mrs Selwin died on Sunday night after a short illness. The lamented lady was the eldest daughter of the late Lord Lyndhurst by his first marriage with Sarah, daughter of Mr Charles Brunsden and widow of Colonel Charles Thomas. She married in January, 1850, Mr Henry John Selwin, eldest son of Sir John. T.L. Selwin, Bart. The late Mrs Selwin was born in March, 1821, and does not leave any family.’
Having twice unsuccessfully contested Ipswich, the following month her husband was finally returned to Parliament as one of the two representatives for Essex South. In 1867 he resumed by Royal licence the original family surname of Ibbetson in addition to that of Selwin and the following year he succeeded his father in the baronetcy.
[From an album compiled by Bertha Amelia Yorke, daughter of the Very Rev. and Hon. Grantham Munton Yorke.]