Marriages
Called "a ladykiller of the first water", John Astley married three times:
- By his first wife, "an Irish lady ... who died giving birth," he had a daughter, Sophia (1749 — 1831). She became mistress of George Hyde Clarke, a prominent landowner in Cheshire and Jamaica, and bore him two sons. One of these sons, therefore John's grandson, is an ancestor of British Olympic competetor Sebastian Coe. In 1792 she married a Frenchman, Louis Foncier, and had further issue.
- Penelope Dukinfield Daniel (1722 — 1762), widow of Sir William Dukinfield Daniel, 3rd baronet, and a daughter of Henry Vernon. Shortly after the death of her husband, she met Astley at an assembly in Knutsford and was so struck by his appearance that she "contrived the next day to sit for her portrait and the week later, she gave him the original". They married on 7 December 1759, in Rosthern, Cheshire, England, soon after their meeting, and she died in 1762. By this marriage Astley had a stepdaughter, Henrietta (died 1771), and upon the death of his wife he became the owner of the Dukinfield and Daniel estates, including Gorse Hall. The death of his stepdaughter, who had been judged insane, brought him even more money, leading one critic to write, "He owed his fortune to his form; his follies to his fortune!"
- Mary Wagstaffe (1760/1 — 18 February 1832), "a celebrated young beauty" and a daughter of William Wagstaffe, a wealthy surgeon of Manchester. They married in 1777 and had five children: Harriet (1779 — 1858), Maria (born 1780), Cordelia Emma (born 1783), John William (1785 — 1823), and Francis Dukinfield Astley (1781 — 1825), poet and High Sheriff of Cheshire. One of three sisters known as "the Manchester Beauties", Mary Astley married, on 28 January 1793, at Dukinfield Lodge, as her second husband, lawyer William Robert Hay (1761 — 1839), and had further issue. He later became Vicar of Rochdale and Prebendary of York, and was a son of Lord Edward Hay, governor of Barbados and ambassador to Lisbon; a nephew of Robert Hay Drummond, Archbishop of York; and a grandson of the 8th Earl of Kinnoull.
Read more about this topic: John Astley (painter)
Famous quotes containing the word marriages:
“If marriages were made by putting all the men’s names into one sack and the women’s names into another, and having them taken out by a blindfolded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a percentage of happy marriages as we have here in England.... If you can tell me of any trustworthy method of selecting a wife, I shall be happy to make use of it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Good marriages are made in heaven. Or some such place.”
—Robert Bolt (1924–1995)
“Women have entered the work force . . . partly to express their feelings of self-worth . . . partly because today many families would not survive without two incomes, partly because they are not at all sure their marriages will last. The day of the husband as permanent meal-ticket is over, a fact most women recognize, however they feel about “women’s liberation.””
—Robert Neelly Bellah (20th century)