Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland

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Franz Xaver Winterhalter : Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland, oil on canvas, 1849

Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland VA (born May 21, 1806 in Devonshire House , London , † October 27, 1868 in Trentham , Staffordshire ) was a British noblewoman and lady-in-waiting ( Mistress of the Robes ) to Queen Victoria . She was also considered the first feminist in the UK.

Life

Lady Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana Howard was the third daughter of twelve children of the Scottish aristocrat George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle (1773–1848) and his wife Lady Georgiana Dorothy Cavendish (1783–1858), a daughter of the politician William Cavendish, 5. Duke of Devonshire , and his first wife, Lady Georgiana Spencer . She received a comprehensive and excellent education, spoke several foreign languages ​​and showed an interest in literature , music and painting .

On May 18, 1823 Lady Harriet married in Trentham the politician George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland (1786-1861), eldest son of George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland , and Elizabeth Gordon. The marriage, which all reports said was harmonious, had eight children:

The Duchess of Sutherland was a childhood friend of Princess Victoria of Kent, who later became Queen (1819-1901). In the following years she was several times as head chamberlain ( Mistress of the Robes ) before the female court of Her Majesty. This office was later held by her eldest daughter Elizabeth Georgiana and her daughter-in-law Anne Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland.

In addition, Harriet Leveson-Gower was very interested in political life and campaigned for the Whigs . In their London townhouse, Devonshire House , the most important political figures met for talks; in which she later introduced Giuseppe Garibaldi to Lord Derby , entertained Polish and Italian political refugees and discussed reforms with Shaftesbury . They had a close friendship with the British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone . The Duchess supported liberal ideas and was very close to the women's movement .

In 1853 the New York Herald Tribune published an article by Karl Marx on "Sutherland and Slavery." In it, the author referred to the decades-long "land clearances" ( Highland Clearances ) that had taken place on the family's properties in Scotland . One understood under this strongly euphemistic term the transplanting of small tenants to other places, because the land was needed for extensive cultivation, for example in the form of mass sheep breeding. In Marx's main economic work, Capital , he again refers to it in the context of original accumulation . These expulsions certainly corresponded to the laws of modern production methods. As a material basis for the philanthropic efforts of the Duchess to injustice overseas (abolition of the slave trade ), Marx found them outrageous. Her husband, however, deaf but capable of business, continued the expropriations as far as it was necessary. In the year of Karl Marx's death, 1883, the Sutherland properties were at the top of the list of British landed property, totaling 5,200 square kilometers.

Offices and Awards

  • 1837–1841 Mistress of the Robes with Queen Victoria
  • 1846-1852 Mistress of the Robes with Queen Victoria
  • 1853-1858 Mistress of the Robes with Queen Victoria
  • 1859–1861 Mistress of the Robes with Queen Victoria
  • 1862 Royal Order of Victoria and Albert , 2nd class

Her name was in her different phases of life

  • 1806–1823 Lady Harriet Howard
  • 1823–1833 The Hon. Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower
  • 1833–1861 Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland
  • 1861–1868 Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland

Others

literature

  • KD Reynolds: Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain (1998)
  • Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden: The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom , Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton Publishing (2000)
  • Peter W. Hammond: The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times , Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing (1998)
  • Charles Mosley: Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage , Wilmington, Delaware: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd (2003)

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Marx's essay on "Sutherland and Slavery" also appeared in England: "The People's Paper" of March 12, 1853. Cf. Isaiah Berlin: Karl Marx, 4th ed. 1978, p. 150
  2. ^ Karl Marx: Das Kapital , vol. 1, p. 768ff, Berlin 1955
  3. ^ Karl Marx: Das Kapital , p. 140
personal data
SURNAME Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Howard, Harriet
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British noblewoman and lady-in-waiting (Mistress of the Robes) to Queen Victoria
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1806
PLACE OF BIRTH Devonshire House , London
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1868
Place of death Trentham , Staffordshire