Ducal Crest – Harriot, Duchess of St Albans

Description

Memoirs of a Traveller Now in Retirement in five volumes, 1806

Born in 1777, the daughter of Lieutenant Mathew Mellon of the Madras native Infantry and a Cork shopgirl of peasant descent who had married him in the same year. He afterwards deserted her, and has never been traced. She claimed that the pseudonym hid a person of high rank. The abandoned bride became a dresser and money-taker in Kena’s theatrical company and married in 1782 Thomas Entwhistle, leader of the orchestra in the company. The family later moved to Ulverston to join Bibby’s company. Here Harriot made her first stage appearance in an acting career that lasted until 1815 when she married the banker Thomas Coutts of London who was then aged 80. Coutts died in 1822 and in 1827 she married, as his first wife, William Aubrey de Vere, 9th Duke of St Albans. She died without issue in 1837.

Coronet: A duke’s coronet

History

The book was purchased from the Monkman Estate in 2008. The bookplate is found in all five volumes.