Mary Stanley, Countess of Derby

English grande dame and political hostess

James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury

(m. 1847; died 1868)

Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby

(m. 1870; died 1893)

Issue5, including Mary ArabellaFatherGeorge Sackville-West, 5th Earl De La WarrMotherLady Elizabeth Sackville

Mary Stanley, Countess of Derby (previously known as Mary Gascoyne-Cecil, Marchioness of Salisbury, née Lady Mary Sackville-West; 23 July 1824 – 6 December 1900) was an English grande dame and political hostess.^[1]

Family

Daughter of George Sackville-West, 5th Earl De La Warr. Sixth of his nine children.^[2]

She married firstly James Gascoyne-Cecil, 2nd Marquess of Salisbury in 1847 with whom she had 5 children:^[3]

Lord Sackville Arthur Cecil (16 March 1848 – 29 January 1898)
Lady Mary Arabella Arthur Cecil (26 April 1850 – 18 August 1903), married Alan Stewart, 10th Earl of Galloway
Lady Margaret Elizabeth Cecil (1850 – 11 March 1919)
Lord Arthur Cecil (3 July 1851 – 16 July 1913)
Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Lionel Cecil (21 March 1853 – 13 January 1901)

Lord Salisbury died in April 1868, aged 76 and was succeeded by his son from his first marriage.

Lady Mary remarried Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby in 1870.

Politics

She was heavily involved in Victorian politics.^[4] Her father was a friend of the Duchess of Kent which meant she was part of Victoria's circle while growing up.^[5] As a result of her strong family connections, while she was married to the marquess of Salisbury, she turned their house, Hatfield House, into a strong Tory base. Frequent visitors to the home were Lord Carnarvon, Disraeli, and Hugh Cairns.

After the death of her first husband and her second marriage she lost Hatfield but continued her strong presence in British politics. She influenced Cabinet members and foreign ambassadors at times a matter of some concern. She was rumoured to have leaked confidential information to the Russian Ambassador Count Shuvalov, though the certainty of this is unclear.^[6] However, Disraeli nonetheless used the idea to alienate Lord Derby amongst the cabinet colleagues, in an effort to gather support for a firmer approach against Russia in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878).^[7] Jennifer Davey regards Lady Derby's political involvement in the Eastern Crisis to have almost destroyed her husband's career, who resigned twice as Foreign Secretary between January and March 1878 before defecting to the Liberal Party.^[8]

Lady Derby was also in regular correspondence with her friends who included Charles Darwin, the Duke of Wellington and Sir Henry Irving.^[5]^[9]^[10]

Her letters were gathered in a book.^[11] Her papers are also available through the national archives.^[12]

She was a well enough known figure to have been mentioned by Virginia Woolf in Orlando: A Biography^[13]

References

^ "Oxford notable biography". Retrieved 6 February 2016.
^ Ghosh, Peter (2004). "Oxford index". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/41303. Retrieved 7 February 2016. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
^ "Family line". Retrieved 6 February 2016.
^ edited by Dr Geoffrey Hicks (2011). "Conservatism and British Foreign Policy, 1820–1920: The Derbys and their World". {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
^ ^a ^b "The Darwin Project". Archived from the original on 9 September 2015. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
^ Davey, Jennifer; Charmley, John (2011). "The Invisible Politician - Mary Derby and the Eastern Crisis". In Best, Anthony; Fisher, John (eds.). On the fringes of diplomacy : influences on British foreign policy, 1800-1945. John Fisher, Antony Best. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-4094-0120-9. OCLC 759158856.
^ Grosvenor, Bendor (2016). "Britain's 'most isolationist Foreign Secretary': The Fifteenth Earl and the Eastern Crisis". In Hicks, Geoffrey (ed.). Conservatism and British foreign policy, 1820-1920 : the Derbys and their world. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. p. 160. ISBN 978-1-315-57349-6. OCLC 952727875.
^ Davey, Jennifer, The Invisible Politician, p.18
^ "Henry Irving". Retrieved 7 February 2016.
^ Wellington. OCLC 503782221.
^ A great lady's friendships: letters to Mary, marchioness of Salisbury, countess of Derby, 1862-1890. Macmillan and Co., limited. 1933. pp. 502 pages. ISBN 9781409482512. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
^ "Stanley, Mary Catherine (1824-1900), countess of Derby, political hostess, wife of 15th Earl of Derby". Retrieved 7 February 2016.
^ Woolfe, Virginia (1928). Orlando: A Biography. Hogarth Press. p. 150.