These new sources help us to focus more sharply on the deep affection she, and all her family, felt for everything about Rothiemurchus and her beloved Duchus, an emotion that might have been more fully emphasized in the original introduction. One example was when she wrote about her emotions on reading about Queen Victoria’s visit to Laggan and Ardverikie in August 1847, a year after the Highland Lady’s last visit.
It is all so changed now. I grieve over this importation of Southrons, who with their gold steal from us the hearts of our followers – divide them with us at, any rate doing them little good, and, as I thought when there, some evil.
There was nevertheless some consolation that she felt her days were numbered: ‘Soon the progress of things will vex me no more, and the little while still to be given to me should be devoted to my duties here. A busy practical present instead of the poetick past.’
In fact, she was to live and write for nearly another forty years.
Andrew Tod, 2012
FAMILY
Colonel Henry Smith of Baltiboys (1780–1862)
Elizabeth Smith, née Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus (1797–1885) (‘the Highland lady’), his wife
their three surviving children, Janie (born 1830), Annie (born 1832) and Jack (born 1838)
her brothers William and John, (later Sir John) Grant and their wives Sally and Henrietta
her sisters Mary and Jane and their husbands Charles Gardiner and, first, Colonel Gervase Pennington then James Gibson Craig of Riccarton, (later Sir James)
her Aunt, Mary Bourne
her cousin Bartle Frere, (later Sir Bartle)
NEIGHBOURING LANDOWNERS
the third Marquis of Downshire (d. 1845) and his Marchioness
the fourth Marquis of Downshire and his Marchioness
Joseph Leeson, the fourth earl of Milltown (1799–1866), of Russborough House
Barbara, Countess of Milltown
the Hornidge and Henry families from Tulfarris and
Russelstown
John Finnemore from Ballyward
William Cotton from Humphreystown
IRISH AND SCOTTISH FRIENDS
Francis, Lord Jeffrey
Sir Thomas Dick Lauder
William and Robert Chambers
Mr Caw from Rothiemurchus
Dwarkanoth Tagore
Baron de Robeck
Tom Shehan, editor of the Dublin Evening Mail
the Agents to the Blessington estates of Lord Downshire,
John Murray to 1841, Henry Gore to 1843 and then William
Owen
Dr George Robinson
Dr Eckford
Dr Litchfield
John Robinson the Baltiboys Agent
Tom Darker the Baltiboys Steward
CLERGYMEN
Rev William Ogle Moore, Rector of Kilbride
his Curate Mr Foster
Mr Featherstone, Rector of Hollywood
Arthur Germaine, Roman Catholic priest at Blackditches
with his curates James Rickard and Richard Galvin
HOUSEHOLD AND ESTATE
the governesses Jane Cooper, Miss Hart and Miss Clerk
the Housekeeper Margaret Fyfe from Rothiemurchus
the school-teachers Miss Gardiner, Arthur McConnell,
Patrick O’Keefe, Fanny MacDonald and John McDarby
TENANTRY
see the index and the Catalogue Raisonée of January 1847
ONE
The opening year of the Highland Lady’s journal introduces us to the family, the estate and the neighbourhood of the market town of Blessington. Her varied entries describe family activities and the life of the tenantry on the estate; she comments on the wider world of politics and public affairs, as the Whig government disintegrates and Daniel O’Connell continues his campaign for the repeal of the Act of Union; and only in Colonel Smith’s autumn trip to St. Servans to investigate the possibility of a short term move to ‘retrench’ is there a suggestion of any change is the settled pattern of their lives.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1. A raw dark rainy day yet Hal went out to look for the harriers and was the better of the ride. No letters by the post, nor news of any consequence in the newspapers. In the morning I worked at accounts, paid all our debts; then gave Janey a musick lesson. In the evening they danced. After they went to bed I read aloud the Life of Wilberforce till half after eleven.
2. After mending Hal’s flannels I finished the year’s account —£6 odd remaining in hands. Luckily at this time of year there is no outlay. I have myself kept within bounds in my own private expenses though it was a costly year. Read Wilberforce aloud from nine to half past eleven and finished the book to our great regret for it is most extremely interesting, the first volume dull, rising in interest every volume after till you quite forgot the disagreeable plan adopted by the editor.1 It is a book to have, to be often read again, for the times he lived in were full of moment and the people he lived with those of the first note in the moral and political annals of our country—many of them known to me—many of them connected with me—and his truly religious heart, producing an uprightness almost heavenly, is a study for every Christian though to my feelings the formality of his religion is to be deprecated and his enthusiasm avoided.
3. The little girls and I went to Widow Redmond’s and to Biddy Shannon to send the children to school. How miserable was Shannon’s cabin, the two families crowded together to save fuel, the asthmatick old man and his epileptick daughter, poor Biddy with five ragged girls, the three youngest infants—one at the breast, another hardly walking—God help them. Settled the school accounts with Miss Gardiner. I must think over the best plan for increasing the number of pupils.
5. A note from Mrs. Moore, [wife of the Rector of the neighbouring parish of Kilbride] about Caroline Clarke which has greatly annoyed me. A case of real hardship to the poor girl whom I by no means forced on her. Wrote notes to several members of our new Book Club asking for their subscriptions, and then to Mrs. Moore to say that neither Sarah [her first maid] nor I wanted Caroline, that I should have been glad to have had her at the time I offered to take her but now I had engaged another.
6. It will behove me now to throw off a degree of indolence I have I think too much given way to—partly from weak health—partly from having Sarah in whom we had such confidence to trust to. I do not mean to replace her and have thus arranged the household—a cook, a housemaid who will wait on me, a nursery maid, Helen to come to do the washing and to be apart in her laundry as a day labourer—to finish it in four days—her wages 10/-a month,