The Duchess was forced by her husband to relinquish Eliza shortly after her birth, to be raised by Charles Grey's parents, Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey, and Elizabeth Grey. The Duchess came to visit Eliza in secret. Eliza named her firstborn daughter Georgiana.
The name Courtney, extinct since the death of Charles Kelland Courtney in 1761, was derived from her great-uncle, her maternal grandmother's brother, William Poyntz (d. 1809), having married Isabella (d. 1805), sister and co-heiress of the aforementioned Charles Courtney, the last of the west country family of Courtney of Trethurfe and Courtney of Tremeer.
Upbringing
Eliza Courtney was born in France, in Aix-en-Provence on 20 February 1792. She was brought to Falloden, Northumberland in northern England and adopted by her paternal grandparents. Unlike her mother's legitimate children from her marriage, Eliza was not raised as part of the Devonshire House set in London. Her mother, Georgiana, could not acknowledge her daughter and visited her in secret until her own death. Several anguish-ridden poems from mother to daughter survive; two are reproduced below:
And yet remote from public view
Flower there is of timid hue,
Beneath a sacred shade it grows,
But sweet in native fragrance blows.
From storms secure, from tempests free,
But ah! too seldom seen by me.
For scarce permitted to behold
With longing eyes each grace unfold.
My bosom struggles with its pain
And checks the wishes form'd in vain;
Yet when I perchance supremely blest,
I hold the floweret to my breast,
Enraptur'd watch its purple glow
And blessings (all I have) bestow.
The gentle fragrance soothes my care
And fervent is my humble prayer
That no dread evil may beset
My sweet but hidden violet.[1]
Unhappy child of indiscretion,
poor slumberer on a breast forlorn
pledge of reproof of past transgression
Dear tho' unfortunate to be born
For thee a suppliant wish addressing
To Heaven thy mother fain would dare
But conscious blushes stain the blessing
And sighs suppress my broken prayer
But in spite of these my mind unshaken
In present duty turns to thee
Tho' long repented ne'er forgotten
Thy days shall lov'd and guarded be
And should th'ungenerous world upbraid thee
for mine and for thy father's ill
A nameless mother oft shall assist thee
A hand unseen protect thee still
And tho' to rank and wealth a stranger
Thy life a humble course must run
Soon shalt thou learn to fly the danger
Which I too late have learnt to shun
Meanwhile in these sequested vallies
Here may'st thou live in safe content
For innocence may smile at malice
And thou-Oh ! Thou art innocent[2]
Georgiana was allowed to see her daughter occasionally when the Greys brought Eliza to London, and acted as a sort of unofficial godmother.
Eliza is a fine girl, and will, I think, be handsome; but tho' they are kind to her, it goes to my heart to see her—she is so evidently thrown into the background, and has such a look of mortification about her that it is not pleasant, yet he [Charles Grey] seems very fond of her. Lord B. [Harriet's husband] has this moment ask'd me whether she is not the Governess.
Eliza was not informed of her true parentage until after the death of her mother in 1806.
Ellice was acting Governor of Malta for five-and-a-half months, from 13 May to 27 October 1851.
In the 1856 Webster's, he is listed as having a residence at 57 Park Street, Mayfair. He died 18 June 1856.
Children
Eliza Courtney and Robert Ellice had at least four children.
Robert
Eliza's son Robert was born on 1 January 1816. In March 1853, he married Eglantine Charlotte Louisa Balfour (died 18 April 1907), third daughter of Lieutenant-GeneralRobert Balfour, 6th of Balbirnie. Robert Ellice died on 19 December 1858.[3]
In April 1889 Edward Charles Ellice married a first cousin-once-removed, Margaret Georgiana Thomas, daughter of Frederick Freeman Thomas[4] by his wife Mabel Brand, daughter of Henry Brand, 1st Viscount Hampden. Like him, Margaret Georgiana was a descendant of Eliza Courtney, through Eliza's second daughter Eliza. Her brother was Freeman Freeman-Thomas, Viceroy of India and was created 1st Marquess of Willingdon.
Their fifth son, Russell (1902–1989) succeeded his father, his four elder brothers having perished young: three of them in World War I—one was in the Cameron Highlanders (killed in action), one was in the Grenadiers (killed in action) and the third was lost on HMS Bulwark.
^(December 1805) Copied from Lord Bessborough's Georgiana, 1955, appendix IV
^copied from Foreman, 1998, page 267/8. From: Verses copied by Lady Charlotte Cholomondeley in her common place book, circa 1816. Lady Charlotte (Seymour) was the mother-in-law of Eliza's daughter Georgiana.
^Marriages Solemnized at St George’s Hanover Square, vol. 1a, 277: BALFOUR Eglantine Charlotte Louisa and ELLICE Robert
^"Margaret Georgiana Thomas"
in England, Select Marriages, 1538–1973, ancestry.co.uk, accessed 9 July 2021: “Name: Margaret Georgiana Thomas; Age: 23; Birth Date: 1866; Marriage Date: 11 Apr 1889;
Marriage Place: Willingdon, Sussex, England;
Father: Frederick Freemans Thomas; Spouse:
Edward Charles Ellice; FHL Film Number: 1468995 IT 1"
^Westminster Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935: "Name: Henry Bouverie William Brand; Marriage Age: Full Age; Marriage Date: 16 April 1838; Marriage Place: St George, Hanover Square;
Parish as it Appears: St George, Hanover Square; Father: Henry Trevor; Spouse: Elizabeth Georgiana Ellice"
^"Elizabeth Ellice", in London, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-2003, Burials in the Year 1859 in All Souls Cemetery established by the General Cemetery Company, ancestry.co.uk, accessed 9 July 2021: "Elizabeth Ellice No. 31076, Abode: Queen’s Hotel, Norwood / 2, Cadogan Place; When buried: 7 May 1859; Age: 68; By whom the ceremony was performed: C. Stuart"
Privilege and Scandal: The Remarkable Life of Harriet Spencer, Sister of Georgiana by Janet Gleeson, Crown Publishers, New York, 2006. ISBN978-0-307-38197-2
Brian Masters, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, Hamish Hamilton, 1981.
Phyn, Ellice and Company of Schenectady, by R. H. Fleming in Contributions to Canadian Economics, Vol. 4, 1932 (1932), pp. 7–41.
The New Annual Army List and Militia List for 1854, the 17th annual volume, by Major Henry G. Hart, John Murray, Albemarle street, London, 1854.
Webster's Royal Red Book; or Court and Fashionable Register, for January, 1856, Webster & Co., 60 Piccadilly, London.
The Upper Ten Thousand, for 1876, A biographical handbook of all the titled and official classes of the Kingdom with their addresses, compiled and edited by Adam Bisset Thom, Kelly & Co., London. (First published 1875).
Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 1952, edited L. G. Pine, London, (sub. Ellice of Invergarry, page 744–745)
External links
Poem by Benjamin Kennicott, D.D. (1718–1783) describing the near death of Kelland Courtney's wife in 1743.