Author: Stuart Wortley, Emmeline Charlotte Elizabeth
Biography:
STUART WORTLEY, Emmeline Charlotte Elizabeth, formerly Manners (1806-55: ODNB)
An English aristocrat and a quite prolific writer, she was born on 2 May 1806 and baptised on 6 June at St. George’s, Hanover Square, London, the second daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, John Henry and Elizabeth (Howard) Manners. On 17 Feb. 1831 at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire she married, by special licence, the Hon. Charles Stuart Wortley (or Stuart-Wortley), son of Baron Wharncliffe. They had three children but the younger boy died in 1844 and his father in 1845. Lady Emmeline’s first poems were published in Blackwood’s Magazine: obituary notices over 20 years later identify her with Blackwood’s specifically, although she published in other periodicals as well. Following the appearance of her first collection of poems in 1833, she produced at least one more almost every year until 1844, and a few more after that, with the last in 1851. In 1837 and 1840 she was the editor of and a significant contributor to the Keepsake annual. She had always enjoyed travelling; after the death of her husband she began to undertake long journeys with her daughter and to write prose books about them, covering much of north and south America. On a trip to the middle east, she suffered a “dislocation” of her leg when kicked by a mule at Jerusalem but continued the journey into Lebanon, where she died of fever and dysentery at Beirut on 30 Oct. 1855. Her final work, two volumes on Spain entitled The Sweet South, was printed after her death for private circulation to her friends and family. (ODNB 20 July 2024; findmypast.com 20 July 2024; Morning Post 19 Feb. 1831; MH 23 Nov. 1855)
Other Names:
- Lady E. S. Wortley
- Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley