Early Life
Born Henrietta Laura Johnstone, she was the only child of the wealthy William Johnstone, later Sir William Pulteney, 5th Baronet, and his wife, Frances Pulteney, daughter of Daniel Pulteney. When her mother inherited the estate of her kinsman, Harry Pulteney (who had previously inherited them from William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath) in 1767, her parents took the name Pulteney. They moved to Bath House on Piccadilly, where she spent her childhood. On her mother's death in 1782, she inherited the vast Pulteney estates. Initially educated at home, Pulteney completed her education at the convent of Montparnasse in Paris in 1783. There she was visited by her kinswoman, the Countess of Hopetoun, her friend Lady Belmore and the Countess of Dundonald, the latter of whom introduced her to Parisian society. As a young woman, Pulteney spent time at Sudborough in Northamptonshire (later endowing a school there as well as in Clewer, Berkshire) where her neighbour was Archibald Alison, to whom she agreed to be a godmother to his son, William.
Read more about this topic: Laura Pulteney, 1st Countess Of Bath
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Life is an operation which is done in a forward direction. One lives toward the future, because to live consists inexorably in doing, in each individual life making itself.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)