Elizabeth Herbert (Philanthropist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elizabeth Herbert, portrait from the 1850s

Elizabeth Herbert , born as Mary Elizabeth Ashe à Court (* July 21, 1822, presumably in Heytesbury , Wiltshire , † October 30, 1911 in Belgravia , London ), was a member of high Victorian society and influential philanthropist . From 1846 she was the wife of the British politician Sidney Herbert . When he was ennobled in 1861, she received the courtesy title of Baroness Herbert of Lea (which she, however, did not use herself). Shortly after the early death of her husband , she converted to Catholicism and, as a benefactress and author of Christian books, became an important promoter of her new faith in Great Britain.

family

Elizabeth Ashe à Court came from an Anglican gentry family from Heytesbury , Wiltshire , whose members had gained some influence in the 18th century through membership in parliament and service in the military. Her father was the Army officer Charles Ashe à Court (-Repington) , younger son of Sir William Pierce Ashe à Court, 1st Baronet . Her mother, Mary Elizabeth Gibbs , came from a British family living in Naples-Sicily with plantation holdings in the West Indies . Elizabeth's brother Charles Henry later sat in Parliament. His son was the war correspondent Charles à Court Repington . The diplomat Lord Heytesbury was her paternal uncle.

Marriage to Sidney Herbert

On August 12, 1846, at the age of 24, Elizabeth married Sidney Herbert , the second son of the Earl of Pembroke, twelve years her senior . Sidney Herbert was a member of the noble Herbert family ; like Elizabeth, he was from southern Wiltshire and had known her since childhood. At the time of the marriage he was already a powerful politician who had been a member of the House of Commons for over a decade and, as State Secretary, had already been a member of the Conservative government cabinet under Peel .

The couple belonged to high society in London; Elizabeth Herbert's friends included Lady Canning and the future Lady Dufferin , both influential wives of Viceroys of India . Elizabeth supported her husband's work - she did most of the secretarial work - and also represented his husband's political positions, such as switching to the economically liberal Peelite faction. Along with her husband, she was one of the key supporters of Florence Nightingale and its nursing reform during the Crimean War . The couple had already met Nightingale during their honeymoon in Rome in the winter of 1847/48 and had been friends with her since then.

The Herberts have distinguished themselves widely through charity and sponsored numerous charitable projects to fight poverty and disease, not only in their common home region of Wiltshire. Together with William Ewart Gladstone , also a close friend, they supported the Clewer House of Mercy near Windsor , an Anglican-style aid organization for unemployed house servants, in order to prevent their slipping into crime or prostitution. Together with Lord Ashley , the Herberts created the Female Emigration Fund in 1849/50 to support poor women (primarily unemployed seamstresses) in emigrating to the colonies, working together with Caroline Chisholm .

In early 1861 Sidney Herbert was named Baron Herbert of Lea for his services . However, he died of nephritis a few months later at the age of only 50 and was buried in the church of St Mary and St Nicholas in Wilton, which he financed . Lady Herbert was thus a widow at the age of 39 with responsibility for her seven children.

Conversion to Catholicism

Soon after the marriage, Elizabeth Herbert had met the Anglican Archdeacon Henry Edward Manning , an old school friend of her husband's. He inspired the hitherto unreligious Elizabeth for the Christian faith, brought her closer to the Anglo-Catholic Oxford movement and quickly became an important spiritual advisor for her. In 1851 Manning, like other influential Anglican theologians, converted to the Roman Catholic Church . At a time when the Roman Church was still viewed as an enemy of the country by much of British society, this was scandalous behavior. The Herberts broke off contact with Manning; a difficult step for Elizabeth. She could understand Manning's reasons for his conversion and thus began to doubt Anglicanism herself. Her husband showed little understanding for this - any approach to Catholicism would have been political suicide for him - so that Elizabeth no longer mentioned the subject during his lifetime.

After the death of her husband, she traveled to the south of France during the mourning period and then on to Rome, where she asked her old friend Manning for advice. She lived in Rome for a long time and rumors surfaced that she was converting to Catholicism. Her husband's family threatened to withdraw custody of their children. After the death of his uncle, their eldest son had become the new Earl of Pembroke and thus nominal head of the family, which is why, from the Herberts' point of view, a change of faith had to be prevented at all costs.

After much deliberation, Elizabeth Herbert finally decided to be Catholic and converted on January 5, 1866 in Palermo . As was to be expected, her previous friends, including Gladstone, broke off contact after this step. Their children were largely withdrawn from their control, only the eldest daughter took over the mother's faith.

After returning to England in mid 1866 advised her Manning, now Archbishop, the Father Herbert Vaughan recently created Mission Society of St. Support Joseph von Mill Hill (north London). A close spiritual friendship soon developed between Vaughan and Lady Herbert. In the following years, Elizabeth Herbert became the most important supporter of the young mission society and supported it with huge sums of money. She also founded and financed a girls' orphanage in Salisbury that was run by the Sisters of Mercy . She later raised funds for the construction of Westminster Cathedral , the cornerstone of which was laid by Cardinal Vaughan in 1895. Because of such charities, she was known as Lady Lightening and The Mother of the Mill .

Elizabeth Herbert was also successful as a writer; she wrote numerous Catholic books. In addition to edifying literature, there were reports from her travels: in addition to an annual visit to Rome, she toured the Holy Land , Spain, North Africa, the West Indies and in 1888 the United States , where her son Michael Henry was a diplomat. Here she tried to convince the African Americans of the southern states of Catholicism, and promoted the construction of an orphanage in Baltimore . Successful books have been titled Impressions of Spain (1866), Cradle Lands (1867), Wives and Mothers of the Olden Time (1871) and Wayside Tales (1880). The autobiographical work How I Came Home (1894) tells the story of her own conversion. In addition , she translated numerous Christian works from French into English, such as Viten von St. Monika , St. Giovanni Battista de Rossi , Bishop Dupanloup , García Moreno and Bishop de Mérode .

Lady Herbert died on October 30, 1911 after a long illness at the age of 89 in her Herbert House estate in London. The funeral ceremony ( Requiem ) was held on November 3rd at Westminster Cathedral and was presided over by Archbishop Bourne . She was buried in St Joseph's College , Mill Hill, near the grave of Cardinal Vaughan; its epitaph bears the inscription The Mother of the Mill .

Elizabeth Herbert is immortalized as a literary figure in various works of her time: She appears as Lady St Jerome in Benjamin Disraeli's novel Lothair (1870), as Lady Chiselhurst in WH Mallock's novel The Old Order Changes (1886).

progeny

Elisabeth and Sidney Herbert had seven children:

  1. Mary Catherine (1849–1935), the only child who followed their mother's faith and also converted to Catholicism, ⚭ Friedrich von Hügel
  2. George Robert Charles (1850–1895), after the death of his father the 2nd Baron Herbert of Lea and after the death of his uncle the 13th Earl of Pembroke
  3. Elizabeth Maud (1851–1933), ⚭ Hubert Parry
  4. Sidney (1853–1913), Member of Parliament; after the death of brother 14th Earl of Pembroke
  5. William Reginald (1854–1870), died in the sinking of the HMS Captain
  6. Michael Henry (1857–1904), diplomat, ambassador to the United States
  7. Constance Gwladys (1859-1917), ⚭ 1.) St George Lowther, 4th Earl of Lonsdale , ⚭ 2.) Frederick Robinson, the Earl de Gray

literature

Web links

Commons : Elizabeth Herbert, Baroness Herbert of Lea  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ The maiden name Ashe à Court- Repington is often given in the literature ; However, her father did not inherit the Repington lands until 1855 - after their marriage in 1846 - after the death of his childless brother Edward Henry à Court-Repington and probably only added the family name at this point in time.
  2. ^ Geoffrey Partington: The Australian Nation , Transaction Publishers, new edition 1997, pp. 25/26
  3. ^ Mary Vaughan: Courtfield and the Vaughans: an English Catholic inheritance , Quiller Press, 1989, p. 72
  4. ↑ MC Rintoul: Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction , Routledge, 2014, p. 504. There reference is made to David Hunter-Blair: A Medley of Memories , 1919, p. 107.
  5. ^ Elizabeth à Court-Repington . holmesacourt.org (biographical information as well as listing of ancestors and descendants)
personal data
SURNAME Herbert, Elizabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ashe a Court, Mary Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British philanthropist and Catholic writer, wife of Sidney Herbert
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1822
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: Heytesbury (Wiltshire)
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1911
Place of death Belgravia , London