Author: Wilmot, Barbarina
Biography:
WILMOT, Barbarina, formerly Ogle, later Brand (1767-1854: ancestry.com)
She was born on 9 May 1767 (not 1768) at Martyr Worthy, Hampshire, and baptised there on 27 May, the third daughter in the large family of Chaloner Ogle (1726-1816) of the Royal Navy (who later became an admiral and a baronet), and his wife Hester Thomas (1738-1796), daughter of the bishop of Winchester. She was educated at home with her sisters as fitted an accomplished gentlewoman. Her Italian tutor was Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), who included some of her translations from Petrarch in his Essays on Petrarch in 1821, which he also dedicated to her. She was an excellent horsewoman and a talented amateur artist, and enjoyed private theatricals. On 15 Mar. 1789 she married Valentine Henry Wilmot, a Guards officer, at Martyr Worthy. They had one daughter, Arabella (1796-1839). Wilmot died on 4 June 1819 and she married for a second time on 4 Dec. 1819 at Bishop’s Waltham, Hampshire. Her second husband was a lawyer, Thomas Brand, who had two months earlier become Baron Dacre. The family seat was The Hoo, Kimpton, Hertfordshire. Lady Dacre’s most significant publication, the collection in two volumes of plays and occasional poems that she had printed in London for private circulation in 1821, is dated from The Hoo. Only one of the four plays in it, Ina, had been performed in a public theatre, and for only one night. The Dacres were notable contributors to charities in the district, for instance by the establishing of schools—one for boys and one for girls—in the village. Country pursuits, private theatricals, and social engagements occupied Lady Dacre’s time but she was also able to maintain longstanding literary friendships with such women as Joanna Baillie, Caroline Lamb, and Frances Kemble (qq.v.). Her last publications were Translations from the Italian (1836) and a play for children, Frogs and Bulls (1838), published for the benefit of the Moorfields Eye Hospital. The early death of her daughter from consumption was a severe blow and increasing deafness limited her social circle. After the death of her husband in 1851, she lived most of the time at their London house in Mayfair, where she died on 17 May 1854. She was buried with her second husband at Kimpton. (ancestry.com 22 June 2024; findmypast.com 22 June 2024; ODNB 22 June 2024; Orlando 22 June 2024; ILN 27 May 1854) HJ
Other Names:
- Barbarina Lady Dacre
- Mrs. Wilmot