Beatrix Lucia Catherine Tollemache

The Honourable
Beatrix Lucia Catherine Tollemache
Tollemache circa 1860
Born
Beatrix Lucia Catherine Egerton

c. 1840
Cheshire, England
Died24 December 1926
Haslemere, Surrey, England
Occupation(s)writer
poet
translator
SpouseThe Hon. Lionel Arthur Tollemache
Parent(s)William Egerton, 1st Baron Egerton
Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Loftus
RelativesEgerton family (by birth)
Tollemache family (by marriage)

Beatrix Lucia Catherine Tollemache (née Egerton, c. 1840 – 24 December 1926)[1] was a British writer, translator and poet.[2] She was the daughter of William Egerton, 1st Baron Egerton of Tatton.[3]

Family

She was born in 1840 in Cheshire, and was the fourth and youngest daughter of William Egerton, 1st Baron Egerton of Tatton and Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Loftus, daughter of John Loftus, 2nd Marquess of Ely.[4] She had seven siblings.

On 25 January 1870, she married the Hon. Lionel Arthur Tollemache, son of John Tollemache, 1st Baron Tollemache[5] and Georgiana Louisa Best. They spent much of their married life enjoying long stays in luxury hotels in Europe, such as the Hôtel d'Angleterre in Biarritz, France, and the Hôtel Sonnenberg, Engelberg, Switzerland.[6]

Career

Tollemache developed a career as a writer,[7] with her poems regularly published in The Spectator.[8] She also contributed to the first Oxford English Dictionary[6] and corresponded with Sir Francis Galton.[9]

In 1890, she published Engelberg, and Other Verses. In 1891, she published a translation of Jonquille, or the Swiss Smuggler from French, and co-wrote Safe Studies alongside her husband.[10]

She taught herself Russian when she was in her seventies, with her obituary in recording that "the bent of her exceptional mind was shown by her mastery of the difficult Russian language, which she acquired when she was already a septuagenarian."[8] In 1913, she published a translation of Russian Sketches, Chiefly of Peasant Life.[11]

Death

Tollemache died in 1926 in Haslemere, Surrey.[12]

References

  1. ^ "The Honourable Beatrix Egerton (1840–1926), the Honourable Mrs Lionel Tollemache". Art UK. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
  2. ^ Reilly, Catherine W. (1994). Late Victorian Poetry, 1880-1899: An Annotated Biobibliography. Mansell. p. 475. ISBN 978-0-7201-2001-1.
  3. ^ Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles (1895). Armorial Families: A Complete Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, and a Directory of Some Gentlemen of Coat-armour, and Being the First Attempt to Show which Arms in Use at the Moment are Borne by Legal Authority. p. 975.
  4. ^ Pine, L. G. ed. (1956) Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 101st edition. London Burke's Peerage Ltd. p. 746.
  5. ^ Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage: Comprising Information Concerning All Persons Bearing Hereditary Or Courtesy Titles, Companions of All the Various Orders, and the Collateral Branches of All Peers and Baronets. Dean and son. 1888. p. 264.
  6. ^ a b Ogilvie, Sarah (15 October 2024). The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary. Random House. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-593-46998-9.
  7. ^ Wiltshire, Irene (1 January 2012). Letters of Mrs Gaskell's Daughters. Humanities-Ebooks. p. 50. ISBN 978-1-84760-204-6.
  8. ^ a b "Obituary: Beatrix Lucia Catherine Tollemache". The Times. 1926. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
  9. ^ "Tollemache, Beatrix Lucie Catherine". Wellcome Collection. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
  10. ^ Chapman, Alice, ed. (22 October 2021). "Tollemache, Beatrix L. (F)". Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry Project, University of Victoria. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
  11. ^ Lermontov, Mikhail Urevich; Leescov, N. C.; Grigorovich, D. V. (Dmitrii Vasilevich); Nekrasov, Nikolai Alekseevich (1913). Russian sketches, chiefly of peasant life. Translated by Tollemache, Beatrix Lucia Catherine Egerton. London: Smith, Elder.
  12. ^ "Beatrix Lucia Catherine Tollemache - Wikisource, the free online library". en.wikisource.org. Retrieved 8 January 2025.