Lillie Langtry - Biography

Biography

Born as Emilie Charlotte Le Breton, Langtry was the only daughter of Dean of Jersey, Rev. William Corbet Le Breton. He gained an unsavoury reputation because of a number of extramarital affairs and, when his wife finally left him in 1880, he left Jersey. He had eloped to Gretna Green with Lillie's mother, Emilie Davis (née Martin), who was known for her beauty. In 1842, he married her at Chelsea. One of Langtry's ancestors was Richard le Breton, one of the reputed assassins of Thomas Becket in 1170. She had six brothers, all but one older than she. Of her six brothers, only William and Clement did not die young from accident or disease. Clement, who died in 1927, was her last surviving brother. Proving too much for her French governess, Lillie was educated by her brothers' tutor, becoming unusually well educated for women of the time.

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