The Remarkable Lushington Family. David Taylor

80 be considered as a serious warning.”³⁸ In June 1826 she wrote to Lady Bentham, “Dr & Mrs Lushington are in Hampstead for the summer and add to the happiness of all connected with them. He is just returned again for Parliament but will I fear next winter lead a busier life than his bodily strength will permit.”

      The happiness of the Carr family was shattered in 1829 by the death of Thomas Carr. Joanna Baillie wrote to Sir Walter Scott’s daughter Anne:

      

      This is a dreadful blow upon . . . the whole family and is lamented by everybody here who had the pleasure of being acquainted with them. As for my Sister & myself and our good Sister in law Mrs Baillie, we in him lost a pleasant & kind friend, who was one of the executors under my Brother’s will and one with whom we could consult & advise in every difficulty. He died after a short & painful illness, of some disease of the heart (for the body was examined) which, I understand, is a very rare one. Mrs Carr & the family are all as well as can be expected; such is our usual report, for we have not yet seen any of them, though I called frequently at the House.³⁹

      News of her father’s death was initially kept from Sarah as she was considered to be in a delicate state recovering from the birth of her first child.⁴⁰

      Following her husband’s death, Frances Carr and her family moved into central London, leaving some of her daughters to stay with the Baillies during the upheaval of the move. Joanna wrote to Margaret Hodson, “Mrs Carr has taken a lease of a very good house in New Street, Spring Gardens which is near the Lushingtons & very pleasantly situated. They will settle in Town about the middle of November.”⁴¹ She also wrote to Isabella Carr expressing her sadness at:

      the immediate termination of a dear & long enjoyed neighbourship which I shall always recollect with gratitude & regret. I am thankful that your house in Frognal is to be inhabited by a family which we need not visit; to have crossed its threshold again & seen new faces there would have been very painful.⁴²

      Even at this time of deep personal loss, sadness and the resulting family upheaval, Frances Carr found time to think of the needs of former neighbors. Joanna continued her letter, “Your Gardener has been very attentive in bringing us many good things for which you must thank your dear Mother in our name.”⁴³

      On Christmas Day 1829, Baillie wrote to Anne Elliott:

      I went with a friend last Saturday to see Mrs Carr & her Daughters in their new house in Spring Gardens which is very pleasantly situated, looking into St. James Park and not far from the Lushingtons. She looked very sad, yet I hope she will cheer up by & by with so many good & dutiful children to support her, who conform so pleasantly to the change in their establishment & prospects. Of this we had not long since a good opportunity of judging when they passed a week with us (I mean 3 of them) at the time they were employed in removing all their furniture from Frognal, ere they left that delightful house for ever.⁴⁴

      When Maria Edgeworth called in May 1831, she was told by Sarah that that her husband was determined to send their two boys to India “for he says every path and place is so full in England that it is impossible to get on without jostling or being jostled to death.”⁴⁵ Later that year Maria wrote to Harriet Butler telling her how she had dined with Sir Humphry Davey at the Lushingtons.

      Mrs Lushington is charming such a real good mother and wife. I wish her children were handsomer . . . Mrs Lushington told me that she has never given a dinner since that which we were at 8 years ago. She found it necessary for Dr Lushington to dine at 4 o clock and to get up at 5 or 6 and she gave up all dinner parties literally and all evening parties and only saw her friend in the morning and in short lives only for her husband family and friends.⁴⁶

      Lushington’s long working hours were not helped by his appointment, in 1828, as a Judge in the Consistory Court while continuing to sit in Parliament as Member for both Ilchester and Winchelsea. This situation led to one of his servants to remark, “Moy [sic] Master sits for two places.”⁴⁷

      NOTES

      1. Journal of Louisa Lushington (1821–1822) Introdution by Linda Slothouber (Chawton House Press, 2017), p. 52.

      2. Ibid., pp. 52–53.

      3. Anna Letitia Barbauld to Sarah Carr, 19 January, 1821. McCarthy, Anna Letitia Barbauld. Voice of the Enlightenment, p. 391.

      4. Maria Edgeworth to Sarah Carr, August 16, 1821. Letters of Maria Edgeworth and Anna Letitia Barbauld.

      5. A full account of Stephen Lushington’s representation of the Queen is in Waddams, Law, Politics and the Church of England.

      6. G.D.H. Cole, The Life of William Cobbett (Routledge, 1927), p. 247.

      7. Joseph Phillimore to the Marquess of Buckingham, August 12, 1820. Memoirs of the Court of George IV (The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, London, 1859).

      8. Stephen Lushington to Henry Brougham, August 9, 1821. The Creevey Papers: A Selection from the Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Thomas Creevey, M.P. (CUP, 1903), Vol. II, p. 22.

      9. Stephen Lushington’s letter to Lord Liverpool, written from Brandenburg House at 10.30 p.m. on August 7, 1821, is reproduced in A. Aspinall (ed.) The Letters of King George IV, 1812–1830, Vol. 2 (Cambridge University Press, 1938).

      10. A full account of Stephen Lushington’s actions on the dead Queen’s behalf is in J. Nightingale, Memoirs of The Last Days of Her Late Most Gracious Majesty Caroline, Queen of Great Britain and Consort of King George the Fourth (J. Robins and Co., 1822).

      11. The Morning Post, 10 August, 1821, reported “Married, on Wednesday, at Hampstead Church, Dr. Lushington, the distinguished Counsel of her late MAJESTY, to Miss CARR, daughter of THOMAS W. CARR, Esq. Solicitor to the Excise. Dr. Lushington, it is supposed, will proceed almost immediately to Brunswick, for the purposes relating to the removal of her MAJESTY’S remains to that place for internment.”

      12. Journal of Louisa Lushington, p. 78.

      13. The total cost of the funeral was £6,591.14.4. BL Add MS 46,149, fol.45b.

      14. Lord Liverpool to George IV, August 7, 1821. Letters of King George IV, Vol. 2.

      15. Seymour, The “Pope” of Holland House, p. 240.

      16. Joanna Baillie to Lady Dacre, August 15, 1821. Further Letters of Joanna Baillie, ed. Thomas McLean (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2010).

      17. Seymour, The “Pope” of Holland House, p. 240.

      18. Joanna Baillie to Lady Dacre, August 15, 1821. Further Letters of Joanna Baillie.

      19. The silver coffin plate remains in the hands of a member of the Lushington family and, at the time of writing, it is displayed in the Royal Pavilion, Brighton.

      20. A full report can be found in the Manchester Mercury, August 21, 1821 and other contemporary newspapers.

      21. “It is said that Dr Lushington was never before on the Continent, though of an active turn, and a great lover of scenery.” John Wishaw, August 28, 1821, quoted in The “Pope” of Holland House.

      22. Stephen Lushington to Thomas Carr (undated, but 1821). SHC 7854/1/4/2.

      23. Ibid.

      24. Stephen Lushington to Lord Liverpool, January 21, 1822. Letters of King George IV, Vol. 2.

      25. Maria Edgeworth to Charlotte Sneyd, Christmas Day, 1821. Maria Edgeworth. Letters from England, 1813–1884.

      26. Maria Edgeworth to Harriett Beaufort, January 5, 1822. Maria Edgeworth. Letters from England, 1813–1844.

      27. Stephen Lushington to Thomas William Carr, n.d., SHC7854/1/4/11.

      28. 2 Great George Street was an early Georgian house. It was demolished in 1910 to make way for the new building of the Institute of Civil Engineers. In 1835, Lushington and his family moved across the road to No. 29.

      29. Joanna Baillie to Margaret