Mrs Grundy - The Real Mrs. Grundy?

The Real Mrs. Grundy?

During the reign of William IV (reigned 1830-1837) a Mrs. Sarah Hannah Grundy (1 January 1804 - 30 December 1863) was employed as Deputy Housekeeper at Hampton Court Palace one of Henry VIII of England's most famous residences. Her husband, John Grundy (1798/1799 - August 1861), was keeper of the State apartments. Mrs. Grundy became Head Housekeeper on 22 April 1838, a year after Queen Victoria ascended to the throne, and she served in that position until 1863 when she retired. Her duties included the care of the chapel at Hampton Court.

Royal families stopped using Hampton Court as a residence in 1737, and from the 1760s onward, it was divided up for 'grace-and-favour' residents who were granted rent-free accommodation in return for great service to the Crown or country. These private rooms numbered in the hundreds. Much is revealed about the Victorian ladies living at Hampton Court Palace through their letters, particularly their correspondence to the Lord Chamberlain's Office as the Ladies attempted to get around the regulations - to exchange their apartments for better ones, to sub-let their apartments for profit, to keep dogs, or other matters of convenience. Equally revealing are the letters from the Housekeepers to the Lord Chamberlain, complaining about the Ladies' behaviour.

This excerpt from an Australian newspaper reveals the possibility that Hampton Court's Mrs. Grundy was a real-life moral regulator who had an impact upon London society, or at least upon the residents of Hampton Court:

Ernest Law, chief historian of Hampton Court, points out that a "Mrs. Grundy" did really exist. 'That lady was, as a fact, embodied in the housekeeper of that name at Hampton Court Palace in the late 'forties and early 'fifties of last century. Her fame is perpetuated in a dark space — one of the mystery chambers of the palace — the door of which is rarely opened, and which is still known as "Mrs. Grundy's Gallery." Here she impounded any picture or sculpture which she considered unfit for exhibition in the State rooms; and here she kept them under lock and key in defiance of the authority and protests of the Queen's surveyor of pictures. The story goes that on one occasion the First Commissioner of Works, on a visit of inspection, sent for Mrs. Grundy. In answer to the First Commissioner's request, she declined to open the door for him. It was not until the early 1900s that a leaden statue of Venus, which had been sent from Windsor, and was stored in Mrs. Grundy's Gallery, was brought forth to adorn Henry VIII's pond garden. 'What would Mrs. Grundy say?'