Lady Georgiana Fane

Lady Cecily Jane Georgiana Fane (25 January 1801 – 4 December 1874) was an English heiress from the Fane family. She was the daughter of John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland and his second wife the former Jane Huck-Saunders.^[3] Her mother bore four other children before separating from her father, after ten years of marriage.

Lady Georgina Fane
Born	Lady Cecily Jane Georgiana Fane 25 January 1801 Apethorpe Palace, Northamptonshire[1]
Died	4 December 1874 (1874-12-05) (aged 73)[2] Mayfair, London, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Heiress
Known for	Pursuit of the Duke of Wellington

This portrait, by Thomas Lawrence, of Lady Georgiana Fane, as a peasant girl, is described as a good example of a trend in painting to represent the rich in fantastic scenes, as individuals from mythology, classical literature, or simple peasants.

Lady Georgiana is known for two things, a much commented upon portrait of her, when she was five or six years old, dressed as a peasant girl, and for her apparent stalking of the Duke of Wellington.^[3][4]

She met Wellington in 1815, shortly after his final victory over Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo; she was 14 years old, and he was 47.^[3]

Lord Palmerston, who was carrying on an affair with her married half-sister, Sarah Villiers, Countess of Jersey, proposed to Lady Georgiana, twice, in 1823, but she turned him down.^[5]

The existence of suggestive letters, from Wellington, seems to confirm they did have a sexual relationship in the 1820s.^[3][4][6] After his wife, the former Kitty Pakenham, died in 1830, Lady Georgiana, and several other women intensified their interest in Wellington, hoping to become his second wife. She could not accept his rejection of her, and harassed him for the rest of his life.

In 1846, she was sculpted by John Edward Carew.^[7]

She died at 5 Upper Brook Street, in Mayfair, London, aged 73.^[2]

References

1. 1871 England Census
2. "Deaths". The Times. The Times Digital Archive. p. 1.
3. Catherine Miller; John Vincent (2 July 2002). "Wellington's lost battle with stalker". The Telegraph. Retrieved 6 August 2018.
4. "The female stalker who put the boot into Wellington". Herald Scotland. 27 July 2002. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
5. Denis Judd (2015). Palmerston. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9780857725738.
6. Toni Ford (2 October 2015). "Great British Houses: Brympton D'Evercy = a stunning stately home in Somerset". The house was largely empty until John 10th Earl of Westmorland's wife Jane Saunders and her daughter Lady Georgina Fane took up residence. That these ladies lived independently of the Earl was scandalizing enough, but Lady Georgiana's affair with the Duke of Wellington is what really got society talking. The affair never became a marriage and Lady Georgiana lived on at Brympton d'Evercy alone following her mother's death.
7. Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660–1851 by Rupert Gunnis