A mariner's widow: grandmother of a Marchioness

Ann Caithness
nee Scorey ca 1860s

Ann Caithness died on 20 May 1889. 

The Hampshire Advertiser of Saturday 25 May reported that at 94 she was one of the oldest residents of Totton. If confirmation was needed that she was still living in the almshouses this local press item obliges. 

Evidently the newspaper was unable to resist mentioning that Mrs Caithness was the grandmother of the recently-widowed Marchioness of Ely, at which point the report wanders off the main topic to deliver information about the late Marquis’s ashes, deposited in the family vault at Kensal Green, even giving minute details of the urn 'of Doulton ware'. Such is the way of the world. Ann’s funeral is dispensed with in a simple sentence without letting us into the secret of where she was buried.

Hampshire Advertiser 25 May 1889

The Marchioness in question was Caroline Caithness, daughter of Ann’s son George Caithness, Master Mariner. Caroline had married on 9 December 1875 John Henry Wellington Graham Loftus, 4^th Marquis of Ely, who held estates in Ireland. They had no children. The Marquis died on 3 April 1889 so Caroline lost her husband and her mother within a matter of weeks.

Western Daily Press 5 April 1889

 

Caroline nee Caithness,
4th Marchioness of Ely and granddaughter
of Ann Caithness nee Scorey

Acknowlegement:
Tom Sheldon