Biography
Guest was born at Uffington House in Uffington, Lincolnshire, the daughter of Albemarle Bertie, 9th Earl of Lindsey and his second wife Charlotte Susanna Elizabeth Layard. Her father died when she was six, and her mother married secondly the Reverend Peter Pegus, whom Charlotte disliked. She showed a great talent for study and taught herself Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian.
After what may have been a brief flirtation with the future Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, she escaped her unhappy home life through marriage in 1833, which was, however, not a conventional one for her age. Her husband, John Josiah Guest, was an industrialist in Wales, the owner of the Dowlais Iron Company and rather older than she was; he was 49 while she was 21. They moved to Dowlais in Merthyr Tydfil after he was elected as Member of Parliament for Merthyr in 1832. Charlotte was very happy in her marriage, which produced ten children. She took an enthusiastic interest in her husband's philanthropic activities on behalf of the local community and also became involved in the business of the iron works, translating technical documents into French. John Guest was created a baronet in 1838.
The decline of her husband's health meant that Charlotte spent more time administering the business and took it over completely following his death in 1852. She stood up to both her workers and other foundry owners until she relinquished her position to G. T. Clark in 1855 upon her marriage to Charles Schreiber. Schreiber was a classical scholar and a Member of Parliament for Cheltenham and later Poole. They left Wales and spent many years travelling in Europe collecting ceramics which she bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum. She also collected fans, board games and playing cards, which she donated to the British Museum.
Guest's eldest son Ivor eventually became First Baron Wimborne and married Lady Cornelia Spencer-Churchill, the eldest daughter of the 7th Duke of Marlborough and an aunt of Winston Churchill. They were the parents of the first Viscount Wimborne. Among her other descendants are the American Guests (the late socialite C. Z. Guest was the wife of one of these), the Earls of Bessborough, the Viscounts Chelmsford, and others.
Read more about this topic: Lady Charlotte Guest
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)