Mrs W.A. Tollemache
(1817-1896)
14 March 1861

Volume 2, page 307, sitting number 2519. 

Born in or about 1817 at Douglas on the Isle of Man, Marguerite Purves was the daughter of John Home Purves.

On 3 June 1846 at Burnham in Buckinghamshire she married William Augustus Tollemache. 

The couple appear on the 1871 census living at Green House in Nutfield, Surrey. The household included five servants. 

In 1870 her Spanish Towns and Spanish Pictures was published, ‘an interesting and attractive volume, the result of a tour through Spain in 1869, and of a careful journal kept the while by the traveller.’

‘The lady’s endeavours, if of an unambitious kind, are yet thoroughly successful, and future travellers in Spain cannot fail to derive much useful assistance and information from her pages. […] Her descriptions of the leading works of art in the galleries of Madrid, Valencia, and Seville are marked by much painstaking. She has paused before each picture, and devoted time and thought to its contemplation. Yet she is a vivacious and practical companion in all matters pertaining to travel. Her admiration of Spain’s artists does not hinder her from jotting down many judicious hints on the subject of railways, coaches, hotels, and generally as to what to eat, drink, and avoid, on a tour through the Peninsula. Assisting the art-student, she does not disdain the more commonplace traveller, to whom a dinner is of greater consequence than many galleries. We confidently recommend the book to the favour of our readers’ (The Graphic, 28 January 1871) 

The success of this work led to further literary exertions. Mrs Tollemache was also the author of Many Voices (1883), Spanish Mystics (1886) and French Jansensists (1893). 

When the census was taken in 1891 she and her husband were visiting William’s sister Emily Leycester at 76 Marine Parade, Brighton. 

Mrs Marguerite Tollemache died on 20 November 1896 at Babbicombe in Devon at the age of 79.