Maria Stanley, Baroness Stanley of Alderley

Maria Stanley, Baroness Stanley of Alderley (born Lady Maria Josepha Holroyd; 1771–1863) was a British letter writer and liberal advocate.

Maria Stanley, Baroness Stanley of Alderley
Born
Maria Josepha Holroyd

1771
Died1863
Shiplake, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
NationalityBritish
Spouse(s)John Stanley, 7th Baronet and in time 1st Baron Stanley of Alderley
Children11
Parent(s)Abigail and John Baker Holroyd (later) 1st Earl of Sheffield

Life

Stanley was born in 1771 to Abigail (née Way) and John Baker Holroyd (later) 1st Earl of Sheffield. They lived at an estate called Sheffield Park in Sussex that her father had bought after inheriting a fortune from his uncle. Her father, a politician, became an Earl in 1781.[1] In 1783 he was awarded another title in the Irish peerage with a special remainder that it could be inherited by his daughters. Her father's only son (at the time) had died aged five.[1] She was precocious and she and her sister, Louise, would write and perform plays. The theme of many of these plays was a question; whether a daughter would be allowed to choose her own husband or whether it would be imposed by her parents.[2]

When she was twelve her intelligence attracted the interest of Edward Gibbon who was a close friend of her father. Gibbon proposed that he should teach her over the next four years.[2]

Stanley chose her own husband. She sorted through many likely groups and she decided to choose a man as well educated as herself.[2] She married John Stanley, 7th Baronet and in time 1st Baron Stanley of Alderley, in 1796. Her husband was known as an Icelandic explorer.[2] They went to live at Alderley Park in Cheshire. The Stanley family had lived there for around two hundred years, but the hall had been damaged by fire in 1779. The 7th Baronet and Baroness had commissioned a new hall to be constructed in 1818 in the south of the estate on a site then occupied by Park House. They lived there for fifty years and there were 11 children of the marriage, with sons who were twins and seven daughters surviving to become adults.[2] The sons were Edward John (1802–1869), the elder twin who inherited the title, and William Owen Stanley (1802–1884), a Liberal Party politician.

Of the seven daughters who survived:

Death and legacy

Stanley died in Shiplake in 1863. Her correspondence is still of interest. 100 years after they were written, her early letters were published as "Girlhood of Maria Josepha Holroyd (Lady Stanley of Alderley)".[7]

References
  1. "Holroyd, John Baker, first earl of Sheffield (1735–1821), politician". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/13608. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  2. Stern, Marvin. "Stanley, Lady Maria Josepha". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/74489. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. Edward Walford (1869). The County Families of the United Kingdom Or, Royal Manual of the Titled and Untitled Aristocracy of Great Britain and Ireland. R. Hardwicke. p. 461.
  4. A Naval Biographical Dictionary - Hare, Marcus Theodore
  5. Parry, A. K. "Parry, Sir (William) Edward". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21443. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  6. "Adeane, Henry John (1789–1847), of Babraham, Cambs, History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 29 December 2015.
  7. Stanley, Baroness Maria Josepha Stanley (1896). Girlhood of Maria Josepha Holroyd (Lady Stanley of Alderley): Recorded in Letters of a Hundred Years Ago, from 1776 to 1796. Longmans.
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