The Marquis and the Mariner's Daughter 3

Ely Lodge rebuilt

When the 4^th Marquis of Ely died in 1889 almost all his estates in Counties Wexford and Fermanagh passed to his successor in the title. However, these estates were heavily encumbered with debt. The 5^th Marquis was a remote cousin who was declared a bankrupt in 1882 and was still a bankrupt in 1894, thus being debarred from his seat in the House of Lords.

In the Introduction to the Ely Papers (a vast conglomeration of documents held in The National Archives UK) it is commented, perhaps unfairly, that apart from the Irish properties having become impoverished, there was also an obligation to pay 3 000 pounds a year to the 4^th Marquis’s widow (i.e. Lady Caroline Anne) who lived until 1917, ‘the third Ely widow to saddle the estates with a jointure over an unusually long period of time'.

It seems right that Caroline should have been provided for in her husband’s will: he died at the early age of forty, an event nobody could have foreseen. It would be interesting to see the schedules giving details of the 4^th Marquis’s marriage settlement dated 1875. At the time of his accession, his income was 30 000 pounds a year (with ‘great accumulations’). By the date of his death this had practically disappeared. By the twentieth century the succeeding generations lived in other parts of the country and no longer bothered much with the Irish estates.

A quiet street in Winchmore Hill

Caroline in due course set up her own establishment at Eversley Park*, Winchmore Hill, Southgate, where we find her aged 56 in 1901, described as ‘Peeress’ with ‘Means’ and head of a household comprising her sister-in-law, Ada, aged 39, and 7 servants including a Butler, Cook-Housekeeper, a Lady’s Maid (from Paris), two Housemaids, a Kitchen Maid and a Footman.

1901 Census Eversley Park
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Ten years later much the same lifestyle prevails at Eversley Park, but Ada is replaced by a Lady Companion.

1911 Census Eversley Park
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As we shall see, Caroline would not forget any of her servants when making her will.

Bells for summoning servants:
shades of Upstairs and Downstairs

*Eversley Park in Green Dragon Lane was built in 1865.

Acknowlegement:

Tom Sheldon

The Marquis and the Mariner's Daughter 2

The marriage entry, 9 December 1875, for Caroline Anne Caithness and John Henry Wellington Graham Loftus gives the groom's residence as Ely Lodge, Enniskillen in the County of Fermanagh, Ireland. 

This house dates back to the 1830s when the 2nd Marquis, lacking a seat in County Fermanagh (they had estates there as well as in County Wexford), built Ely Lodge on a promontory beside Lough Erne. Stone for its construction came from another family home, Castle Hume not far away, which had been demolished. 

'Ely Lodge was a large classical house ...The main front was a five-bay, two storey, stuccoed block with Tuscan pilasters and a central, columned porch. On either side were single-storeyed bowed wings.' This residence lasted for thirty years. In 1870, for a series of possible reasons described as '(1) an unwelcome visit from Queen Victoria, (2) the discovery of the agent's fiddling and (3) the building of a bigger and better house, Ely Lodge was blown up as the climax of the festivities that marked the coming-of-age of the 4th Marquis.'

The proposed new house was never built, probably because the 4th Marquis overspent on rebuilding his other seat, Loftus Hall, County Wexford. However, from his will made in 1884 it seems that the stable block at Ely Lodge was converted to domestic use and became in time the seat of the family until sold in 1947.

Loftus Hall: near Fethard-on-Sea, Co. Wexford, 'a gaunt three-storey mansion of 1871 with rows of plate-glass windows and a parapet, incorporating parts of a previous late 17th c house. The house, (which was built by the 4th Marquis of Ely after he turned 21) stands near the tip of Hook Head, an extremely windswept spot bereft of trees and shelter.' The coastal view above gives an impression of the starkness of the place.

Whether Lady Caroline Anne ever spent any time at either Ely Lodge or Loftus Hall history doesn't relate. If she did, perhaps Kearsney Abbey in the softer countryside of Kent, the 4th Marquis's English residence by the 1880s, was more to her liking.

Acknowledgement:

Tom Sheldon