Victorian Girls: Lord Lyttelton's Daughters

Meriel, Lucy, Lavinia and May, the daughters of George, fourth Lord Lyttelton, were the nieces of the Prime Minister William Gladstone, with whose family they were on intimate terms. Their letters and diaries make it possible for us to know them and share their feelings in extraordinary detail: at home at Hagley Hall in Worcestershire and in fashionable London society; at country houses and on tours to the Continent; in the schoolroom and embarking on courtship and marriage; in happiness and in adversity. Despite having eight very successful brothers, the girls emerge in their own right as strong characters, whose piety did not inhibit their exuberance and joie de vivre. Their life was changed for ever by the death of their mother, Mary, shortly after the birth of her twelfth child in 1857. Until they married, Meriel, Lucy and Lavinia in turn had to take on the responsibility of running Hagley and all that entailed, as well as being the mistress of the house on formal occasions. Two of the girls married prominent men. Lucy, herself later a pioneer in women's education, married Lord Frederick Cavendish, who became Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1882 and was tragically murdered by Irish patriots in Phoenix Park, Dublin, the day he arrived. Lavinia married Edward Talbot, the first Warden of Keble College, Oxford. May was a close friend of Hubert Parry, the composer, and might well have married Arthur Balfour, the future Prime Minister. Victorian Girls: Lord Lyttelton's Daughters is a remarkable portrait of a family. It is impossible not to feel personally involved in their lives.