Frances Emilia Crofton

Frances Emilia Dunn (Waterford 1822 – Dunmore 23 October 1910),[1][2] was known to her family as Fanny.[3] She was the daughter of Nicholas James Cuthbert Dunn RN (1785–1858)[nb 1][4] and his wife Frances Elizabeth (1794–1872).[5][6] Two of her brothers, Montagu Buccleugh and William James, were Naval lieutenants.[6] On 30 March 1848 she married William Crofton (1813 – 23 May 1886), RN, MD, JP,[6][7][8] at St Mary's Church, Pembroke.[9][10] He had been an assistant surgeon on HMS Royal Adelaide, and was the second son of Duke Crofton, JP, DL.[8] When her husband died in 1886, he left over £20,000 (equivalent to £2,194,715.38 in 2019),[11] including the couple's houses and contents at Lakefield and Cheltenham, and the Lakefield estate.[12][13][14]

Crofton married into the politically complex situation of Anglo-Irish sectarianism. In 1902, at the time of the accession of Edward VII, she presided over the "enthusiastic" celebrations organised for her family's estate workers at Lakefield in Ireland, and was congratulated for that. On the same occasion her nephew, Captain Duke Crofton, proposed a toast to the health of the new king, but "in doing so referred to the offensive terms of the Coronation Oath to His Majesty's Catholic subjects".[15] Half a century before that, she had published a volume of pictures in aid of a charity whose intention was to "preserve the Protestantism of the orphans of mixed marriages".[nb 2][16]

In Cheltenham Crofton supported charities for the poor. In 1870 she was a patron of amateur concerts in aid of the Female Orphan Asylum and the Local Poor, in Cheltenham.[17][18]

When young, Crofton was described by the Wexford Independent newspaper as "amiable and accomplished."[7] In her old age the Leitrim Advertiser said she was "venerable and highly respected".[15]

Homes in England and Ireland

Crofton's Cheltenham address

Crofton and her husband lived in both Britain and Ireland,[13][19] travelling regularly between the two.[20] In England they lived at Montagu Villa, 1 Clarendon Villas, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire,[nb 3][21] where Frances Emilia Crofton's parents lived between 1849 and 1860,[22][23] and Frances and William Crofton lived between 1862 and 1910.[24][25] Frances and William Crofton's Irish home was Lakefield, a mansion with an estate in Mohill, County Leitrim, Ireland.[8] The house was built between 1791 and 1798, and its lands were part of the Crofton Mohill estate. The Crofton family owned it until 1931 when it was sold to the Irish Land Commission, after which it became a ruin.[26][27]

Crofton's professional name was Mrs William Crofton.[28] She is known for a single work only: a set of lithograph copies of her own original landscape paintings of Britain and Ireland. The whereabouts of her original paintings is unknown. In 1855, she donated £51 (equivalent to £5,493.84 in 2019)[11] to the County Leitrim Protestant Orphan Society. This was the proceeds of the sale of "eight views taken by that lady": a subscriber edition of bound volumes containing a set of eight lithographs after landscape pictures by Crofton.[29][28][30] A Dublin bookseller Penelope Gibson has said, "The plates are in striking detail showing scenery chiefly of the Irish country side, castles, abbeys and ruins".[31]

• Crofton, Mrs William (1854). Eight views, for the benefit of the County Leitrim protestant orphan society from the original drawing. Ackerman. Retrieved 24 December 2020. The eight engravings were lithograph copies of Crofton's original paintings. Some editions were bound in olive green cloth with gold motif. The untinted lithographs were by Thomas Ashburton Picken (1818–1891),[32] and some tinted lithographs were by William Louis Walton (fl.1834–1855).[nb 5][33] It was produced in folio or quarto size.[28]

• I View from Clooncaher of Lough Rynn and Lakefield, County Leitrim (1854).[34]
• II Ruins of Muckruss Abbey (1854).[34]
• III Monastery on Innisfallen Island, and Ross Castle, Killarney (1854).[34]
• IV Castle Otway, County Tipperary, residence of Captain Otway, RN (1854).[34]
• V Dunbrody Abbey, County Wexford (1854).[34]
• VI Pembroke Castle, South Wales (1854).[35]
• VII Isle of Portland, Dorsetshire (1854).[34]
• VIII Village of Hambledon, Hants (1854).[34]

• Royal Collection Trust: Five of the prints including Killarney, Dunbroody Abbey, Lough Rynn, Muckruss Abbey and Castle Otway.[36]
• Falvey Memorial Library, Villanova University, Pennsylvania: Eight views for the benefit of the County Leitrim Protestant Orphan Society: 8 tinted lithographs of folio size 450 x 320mm, after original drawings by Mrs William Crofton. The list of plates has a wood-engraved border.[28]
• The People's Collection, Haverfordwest Library: Pembroke Castle, South Wales[35]
• National Library of Wales: Pembroke Castle, South Wales.[37]
• National Library of Ireland: Monastery on Innisfallen Island and Ross Castle, Killarney.[33]
• Marquess Conyngham collection, Slane Castle (until 1980): Bound volume, Eight Views.[nb 6][38]

• Leverson, Ada (12 December 2019). The Twelfth Hour. Good Press. Retrieved 27 December 2020. This novel was originally published in 1907 by Grant Richards. It references an elderly Mrs William Crofton in Chapter IV "Aunt William".

• Crofton, Henry Thomas (1911). Crofton Memoirs and account of John Crofton. York: Yorkshire Printing Company. OCLC 499678075. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
• Crofton, Henry Thomas. "The Crofton Memoirs 1911". irishfamilyhistorycentre.com/. The Irish Family History Centre. Retrieved 28 December 2020. (This link gives a summary of the contents of the above book).

• Media related to Frances Emilia Crofton at Wikimedia Commons