Henrietta Maria Stanley, Baroness Stanley of Alderley (née Dillon-Lee; 21 December 1807 – 16 February 1895), was a British Canadian-born political hostess and campaigner for the education of women in England.[1]
My grandmother's outlook, throughout her life, was in some ways more Continental than English. She was always downright, free from prudery, and eighteenth-century rather than Victorian in her conversation. Her French and Italian were faultless, and she was passionately interested in Italian unity.[2]
In Florence she met Edward Stanley and married him on 7 October 1826. She became Baroness Eddisbury when her husband was created a peer in 1848. Two years later he succeeded as Baron Stanley of Alderley, by which title the couple was subsequently known. She corresponded with her mother-in-law, Maria, who had received an exceptional education. Maria wrote to her to applaud that she had admonished her son John Stanley for calling Indian people, "niggers".[5]
Education campaigns
Lady Stanley cultivated friendships with Thomas Carlyle, F. D. Maurice, and, from 1861, Benjamin Jowett. She presided over an intellectual and political salon, and was one of the original 'lady visitors' of Queen's College, London, founded by Maurice in 1848. This marked her stronger involvement in the campaign for the education of women and her decision to defend, as she later put it, "the right of women to the highest culture hitherto reserved to men".[2]
She proceeded to take part in the campaign whose aim was to secure the admission of women to the university local examinations. In 1867, she turned down an offer to become a member of the committee planning a women's university college, saying that "it is not liked to see my name before the public". The death of her husband on 16 June 1869, however, left her more free to pursue her campaign.[2] The same year, along with Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon, Lady Stanley founded Girton College.[6] She soon became a prominent supporter of the National Union for the Improvement of Women's Education (1871), the Girls' Public Day School Company that became the Girls Day School Trust (1872) and the London School of Medicine for Women (1874).[2]
In early 1872 she was again invited to participate more formally in the administration of Girton, which she now accepted, and she joined the building subcommittee. The project, seen as daring and even scandalous, benefited from her social position; Lady Stanley considered "social position, good sense and power of governing and conciliating" necessary for the mistress of the college. She donated both money and time to Girton, standing in as its mistress during the illness of Annie Austin, and providing £1,000 for the establishment of its first library, which was built in 1884 and called the Stanley Library. One of the few executive committee members who dared confront Davies, Lady Stanley vehemently opposed the construction of a chapel, and instead favoured improving staff salaries and equipment.[2] In 1888, she helped found Sydenham High Junior and Senior Schools with Maria Grey, Mary Gurney and Emily Shirreff.[citation needed]
Bertrand Russell, her grandson, feared her ridicule and described her as "an eighteenth century type, rationalistic and unimaginative, keen on enlightenment, and contemptuous of Victorian goody-goody priggery". "Grandmama Stanley at Dover Street", according to Russell, "had a considerable contempt for everything that she regarded as silly".[8][9] She died at her home in Dover Street, which she had shared with her unmarried daughter Maude.[2]
Rosalind Frances (1845–1921), later Countess of Carlisle, became the chatelaine of Castle Howard and a radical temperance campaigner.
Lady Stanley's great-great-granddaughter, Nancy Mitford, wrote of the favouritism she showed in treating her children. Her eldest son, Henry, was her favourite, while her eldest daughter, Alice, was her least favourite and treated accordingly.
Arms
Coat of arms of Henrietta Stanley, Baroness Stanley of Alderley
Escutcheon
Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley (Argent on a bend Azure three stags’ heads cabossed Or a crescent for difference)[10] impaling Henry Dillon, 13th Viscount Dillon (Quarterly 1st & 4th Argent a fess between three crescents Sable 2nd & 3rd Argent a lion rampant Gules debruised by a fess Azure between three crescents Gules)[11].
^Brown, Michael; Power, Thomas P. (2005). Converts and Conversion in Ireland 1650–1850. Dublin: Four Courts Press. p. 284. ISBN1-85182-810-9. ... the succession of the title and lands of the Dillons in Ireland was assured by the conversion of Henry's eldest son Charles Dillon (later twelfth Viscount Dillon of Costello-Gallen) in Dublin of 4 December 1767 ...
^The Encyclopædia Britannica. The Encyclopædia Britannica Company, ltd. 1929. p. 314.
^Martin, Jane (1998). Women and the Politics of Schooling in Victorian and Edwardian England. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN0718500539.