The Remarkable Lushington Family. David Taylor
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effected, and the improvement, intellectual and moral, are really astonishing.”31 This interest in progressive education was pursued some years later when two of Sarah’s daughters were involved in an experimental school which was set up under the supervision of Lady Byron.
Enter Lady Byron
Annabella Millbanke, the future Lady Byron, had been on friendly terms with the Carr family from before they moved to Hampstead. Her family were also from Northumberland and knew the Carrs. In a letter to Sarah Carr written from Alnwick in August 1807, she referred to an excursion she had made with Sarah and her father. Annabella, like Maria Edgeworth also thought highly of Sarah’s artistic talent.
In January 1815, Annabella married George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron. Their time together as husband and wife was both short and stormy, and the marriage was doomed from the start due to Byron’s infidelity and debt. Barely eleven months after her marriage Annabella gave birth to a daughter, Augusta Ada (the future Lady Lovelace). In January 1816, concerned at her husband’s increasingly bad behavior, Lady Byron took her daughter to her parents in Leicestershire. She never returned to her husband. Later that month, Lady Byron’s mother sought advice on her daughter’s behalf from two distinguished lawyer friends. They advised her to consult a young rising star in the legal profession named Stephen Lushington.
Lady Byron considered taking refuge in the possibility that her husband was mad and had earlier consulted Dr. Matthew Baillie, brother of Joanna Baillie, concerning Lord Byron's mental state. Following an initial consultation with Lady Byron’s mother, Lushington agreed to take on what would prove to be his most celebrated case.32 In February of that year, Lushington had his first meeting with Lady Byron. Her suspicions of incest him Lushington to believe that reconciliation was impossible and, as a result, he urged her to immediately cease all communication with her husband. He advised her to bring the case to trial but she informed him that she wished for a private settlement. Thus began the process of their legal separation and, on October 12, 1816, Lady Byron wrote from Kirkby Mallory, her family home:
My zealous & disinterested friend Dr Lushington is here now on a visit of relaxation from his professional labours, and in the little conversation I have had with him about my prospects, he seems thoroughly convinced that Lord B will not return, and that such an event is only held out by his friends from prudential motives.33
In 1816, Lady Byron moved to Hampstead. She had met Joanna Baillie some four years earlier and often visited her and her sister in the village. She was also already a regular visitor at “Maryon Hall,” often staying there for several days. Lady Byron eventually took a furnished house in the village for herself and Augusta Ada.34 After moving to Hampstead, she wrote how Mrs Carr had “been particularly kind in supplying my wants as to the household” and, once settled in her new home, she began to reciprocate the generosity shown to her by holding dinner parties at which distinguished visitors would mix with her neighbors. It was probably at one of these functions that Sarah Carr and Stephen Lushington met for the first time.
The fresh air of rural Hampstead and walks in the open fields around her new home greatly benefitted her young daughter and soon Lady Byron was able to report “Ada grown very intelligent—singing—dancing—conversing. She may be made a good & happy person, I think, without great difficulty from her present amiable disposition”35 As Ada grew in years her mother enlisted the help of some close friends to help mentor and guide the young girl who was proving a little too unruly at times. According to a later close confidant of Ada, these three ladies were constantly with Lady Byron who was entirely led by them. They were accused of interfering in the most unjustifiable manner between mother and daughter. Ada called them the three Furies after the mythological Greek deities. They were Selina Doyle (an old childhood friend from Yorkshire), Mary Montgomery of Blessingbourne, N.I. (whose brother had been an unsuccessful suitor of Lady Byron) and Frances Carr (Sarah’s sister). All three continued to figure in Ada’s life as she grew into maturity.
In 1817, to escape from the tittle-tattle of London society, Lady Byron left for the north of England. She required a suitable traveling companion for this adventure and, after some discussion with the Carrs, it was agreed that the young Sarah, despite a weakness of constitution, would join her.36 Lady Byron spent four nights at the Carr’s home before setting off with Sarah for Yorkshire from where she planned to journey on to the Lake District. However, no sooner had Sarah left Hampstead than she was overcome with homesickness. She confided in her Journal:
The weather was intensely hot as we left Frognall & excepting in the pleasant conversations and open kindness of my friend, I found little in the day’ Journey to interest, or to divert my thoughts that constantly turned back with regret to those I left behind—Indeed I never remember to have begun a journey with less buoyancy of hopes.37
During the journey, Lady Byron unburdened herself to her young companion. Sarah wrote to her mother, “I had a good deal further conversation with Lady Byron today as to the state of her feelings on one great subject.”38 Baillie later wrote to her friend Anne Millar:
We lost our sweet neighbour Lady Byron about a fortnight ago; and she has taken Miss Carr with her, intending to travel to the Lakes in quest of health which I wish she may find. Her stomach & nerves are in a bad state & she sleeps ill, evets [sic] not to be wondered at in her situation.39
In the event, it was Sarah’s health that became a cause for concern and letters on the subject flew between Hampstead and Derbyshire. In July, Joanna Baillie called on the Carrs with a letter she had received from Lady Byron concerning Sarah. The letter's content was shared with an anxious mother who expressed the hope that her daughter would soon get stronger and that she would not “add to your anxiety which would be defeating the end of your travelling.” Furthermore, although she did not wish that Sarah should return earlier than was originally planned, if she did not recover to full health, Mrs Carr would send her son to fetch his sister home.40 Sarah continued with Lady Byron but, by August, Lady Byron decided to travel on to Scotland alone. Baillie wrote to her encouraging her to visit Sir Walter Scott on this next stage of her journey and then added:
I am glad to hear such favourable accounts of our poor Sarah. I trust she will by & by get entirely free of her complaint. It has been very hard upon her affectionate nature not to have been so long with you nor so useful to you as she wished. She mentions in her letters to her Friends here your kindness of attention to her in the most grateful & gratifying terms.41
A year after her troubled excursion Sarah visited Maria Edgeworth and gave her a full account of the trip which Maria then relayed to her mother:
Miss Carr dined here; we like her very much. She is a particular friend of Lady Byron’s—travelled with her in England the year Lord Byron left her—went with her to the very place where Lady Byron had been married. She gave us a most touching account of Lady Byron’s conduct—of her struggles to repress her feelings—of the absurd conclusion some people drew from her calm manner and composed countenance that she did not feel. Remember that I told you of Lady Byron’s coming as if in her sleep into Miss Carr’s room that night in the dead of night and sitting on the side of her bed—wishing to be able to cry. I cannot write it all—but I am sure I shall remember to tell it you. It made too great an impression ever to be forgotten. Miss Carr is a most engaging unaffected truly feeling young woman and she is extremely well informed and accomplished. She was so good at my request to let her servant bring with her this evening two books large as Allen’s Town print-books of her drawings—sketches she had made in 1816 on a tour through Germany Swisserland [sic] and Italy . . . Miss Carr as we turned them over gave most entertaining notes explanatory—telling us anecdotes of places and people and manners.42
Shortly after this, Stephen Lushington proposed marriage to Sarah Carr.
NOTES
1. Walter Sidney Scott (ed.) Letters of Maria Edgeworth and Anna Letitia Barbauld Selected from the Lushington Papers (Golden Cockrel Press, 1953), p. 9.
2. Recollections of Sir Stephen Lushington, 1st baronet, and Dr Stephen Lushington.
3.