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:
“You can no more keep a martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there. The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest-lived.”
—Bernard Devoto (1897–1955)
“The happiest two-job marriages I saw during my research were ones in which men and women shared the housework and parenting. What couples called good communication often meant that they were good at saying thanks to one another for small aspects of taking care of the family. Making it to the school play, helping a child read, cooking dinner in good spirit, remembering the grocery list,... these were silver and gold of the marital exchange.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“Good marriages are made in heaven. Or some such place.”
—Robert Bolt (1924–1995)