Tag Archives: George III

George III and Hannah Lightfoot

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Oil painting on canvas, Called Hannah Lightfoot, Mrs Axford (1730-c.1759), ‘The Fair Quakeress’, by Sir Joshua Reynolds (Plympton 1723 – London 1792), circa 1756. A painted oval half-length portrait of a young woman, turned to the right, gazing to the right, brown hair dressed back with a pink ribbon, in white satin dress edged with lace and decorated with pink bows, with a pink ribbon frill around her neck.

Hannah Lightfoot, if you believe these things, was the mistress of George, Prince of Wales. She was born in 1730, the daughter of a shoemaker in Wapping. Three or so years later her father died and she was adopted by her uncle Henry Wheeler, a linen draper. So far so good. Hannah, a quaker, married clandestinely outside the Friends. it wasn’t long before she discovered her error and fled her husband, a man named Isaac Axford. This was 1755. There was nothing more heard of Hannah and in 1759 Isaac remarried. he either thought she was dead or since Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act was passed in 1753 he believed that the union was invalid – clandestine marriages being banned at that time.

And then we start moving into the realms of gossip and conspiracy. Wheeler’s merchandise was sold at St James’ Market and it just so happens that the Young Prince of Wales noticed her there…or at a ball…take your pick. The Public Advertiser of 7 September 1770 calls her the ‘Fair Quaker’ and it suggests that she and the Prince of Wales were having an affair. In some versions of the story George persuaded her to marry Axford and in other versions she just marries George and moves to Peckham. In 1866 Mrs Lavinia Ryves went to court claiming that her mother was the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Cumberland – the brother of George III. Her mother Olive, claimed that George III left her £15,000 as his niece. The claim was thrown out. More documents appeared including a marriage between George and Hannah in 1759 – in two different places! The first at Kew Chapel and the following month, May, in Peckham. The officiant on both occasions was James Wilmot.

There were two sons and a daughter.

And now for the conspiracy theories! in 1845 the parish records of St Anne’s Chapel Kew were stolen and later found in the Thames…without the records. And in Carmarthen the grave of Charlotte Dalton, the grand daughter of Hannah perhaps explains the presence of the George III pipe organ – made for the king in a church with no known royal connections. There was a television programme about it in the 1990s but in truth the genuine family history of the family purporting to be that of George III is a long way distant from royalty.

Tendered, Mary L., The Fair Quaker Hannah Lightfoot and Her Relations with George III (London: 1910)

Lindsay, John, The Lovely Quaker, (London, 1939)

And then we start moving into the mists

Georgian style

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fullsizeoutput_11c.jpegThe Georgian Period dates between 1714 with the accession of George I and 1830 when William IV or Sailor Billy as he was known succeeded his brother George IV.

The Regency Period which often dominates popular knowledge because of it influence on culture, fashion and architecture only lasted nine years from February 05 1811 when George III was deemed incapable of ruling and his son became Prince Regent in his stead.George III had suffered from periodic bouts of madness caused, we think, by porphyria that had alarmed Parliament since 1788 but the death of his youngest daughter Princess Amelia aged only 27 in November 1810 sent him spiralling into insanity.  The Prince Regent, “Prinny” or George Augustus Frederick to give him his full name ruled in his father’s stead for the nine years until George III died in Windsor Castle on 29 January 1820.  The Prince Regent then became George IV.

Just to confuse things slightly further the Regency era is usually seen as incorporating the reigns of both George IV and William IV as well coming to an end only with the reign of Queen Victoria.

Essentially Regency Architecture is Neo-Classical.  Its about symmetry, balance, columns, pastel shades animist importantly breaking the rules of proportion.  It associated with Robert Adam amongst others.  I should add that I’ve by-passed the earlier Georgian Palladian Architecture completely.  Palladian Architecture was bound by the rules of proportion as a result tends to look heavier than Neo-Classical buildings – but as with all these things it is probable that you wouldn’t have had one without the other.

Aside from Bath’s famous and very beautiful crescent Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire springs to mind as being very Neo-Classical and its a hall – so that’s where my advent image for today is coming from.  The lion can be found in the Long Walk rather than in the hallway!  He’s a reproduction of a sixteenth century lion in the Villa Medici in Rome. The ball doesn’t not represent the lion’s desire for a game of football but is representative of the Earth.  The lion is about power and, of course, royalty.  Nathanial Curzon commissioned the piece in 1759 – which is somewhat before the Regency Era.

Curzon, like many other men of the period, was influenced by his Grand Tour of Europe – the Seventeen and Eighteenth Century equivalent of a gap year.  Essentially the idea of the Grand Tour was to broaden the mind and apparently to collect classical stuff if half the stately houses I’ve ever been to are anything to go by.  This discovery of ancient architecture and artefacts was one of the things which influenced the Palladian and Neo-Classical styles.  Men wished to emulate the ancient civilisations.

If you’re feeling grieved by the fact that the only hall aspect of this post is the name Kedleston Hall all I can do is offer you some examples of Neo-Classical staircases such as the one in Somerset House or the impressive spiralling staircase in the Greenwich Naval College.