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Lady Charlotte Finch, née Fermor (1725 - June 1813), governess to all thirteen surviving children of George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, King and Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. She was the daughter of Thomas Fermor, 1st Earl of Pomfret. In 1746 she married the Hon. William Finch, to whom she bore four children. She was sworn in as royal governess in August 1762, one day after the birth of her first charge, George, Prince of Wales, the future King George IV. Shortly after her selection, her husband began to show signs of mental illness. Fearing for her safety, she left her husband, taking their children, and took an apartment in St. James's Palace and a small house in Kew. An enthusiastic botanist and an enlightened teacher, Lady Charlotte's tenure as governess to the royal children spanned more than thirty years.
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William Hopkins (Active 1787 - 1811), portrait painter and copyist, he was perhaps a pupil of Sir William Beechey, copies of whose portraits he made. Little is known of his career, but he appears to have been commissioned to paint the portraits of a number of people in the royal household. He exhibited thirteen works at the Royal Academy between 1803 and 1811, during which time his address is given as Windsor Castle.
Oh MY, what a wonderful face. I'm dying to know her thoughts. And that's a beautiful gown she has on.
ReplyDeleteWow she looks dour! Don't mess with nanny!
ReplyDeleteHardly! She was a very accomplished and very dedicated woman.
DeleteWe have a lot of correspondence here between the 5th. Duchess of Beaufort and Lady Elizabeth Finch. What a remarkable woman for her time. Very well educated and a fluent speaker of Italian, she probably encouraged the Duchess to go to Italy on a Grand Tour when very few Ladies would have embarked upon such dangerous roads.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting! Thank you for sharing that.
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