Anna Spencer-Stanhope 1824-1901

In 1822 [her father] John Spencer-Stanhope [aged 34] and [her mother] Elizabeth Wilhelmina Coke [aged 26] were married. She the daughter of [her grandfather] Thomas Coke 1st Earl of Leicester [aged 67] and [her grandmother] Jane Dutton.

On 28th August 1824 Anna Spencer-Stanhope was born to John Spencer-Stanhope [aged 37] and Elizabeth Wilhelmina Coke [aged 29].

William de Morgan and his Wife Chapter 5. Now it happened that, a short time before, the village schoolchildren had presented Anna Maria Stanhope [aged 24], Lady Elizabeth's eldest daughter, with a little bonnet of white plaited straw which they had made for her, and thinking to please them she had decided to wear it on this occasion. The prim little headgear, shadowing her dark hair and brilliant eyes, proved singularly becoming, but her sisters had laughed at her for wearing it. 'You look a perfect Lucilla!' they declared, referring to Mrs. Hannah More's novel; ' All that is wanted is Cœlebs in search of a wife!'

William de Morgan and his Wife Chapter 5. But the course of the romance did not at first run smoothly; and three or four years passed before, at his third proposal [[her future husband] Percival Andrée Pickering [aged 42] and Anna Spencer-Stanhope [aged 28]], his devotion found its reward. After their marriage the young couple lived first in Green Street, in a little house with a bay window, now pulled down, which during a former generation had sheltered another romance, for there had resided the beautiful Miss Farren who became Lady Derby.

On 29th March 1853 Percival Andrée Pickering [aged 43] and Anna Spencer-Stanhope [aged 28] were married at All Saints Church, Cawthorne [Map].

On 30th August 1855 [her daughter] Evelyn de Morgan aka Mary Evelyn Pickering was born to [her husband] Percival Andrée Pickering [aged 45] and Anna Spencer-Stanhope [aged 31]. She was baptised at All Saints Church, Cawthorne [Map]. She studied Greek, Latin, French, German, and Italian, as well as classical literature and mythology, and was also exposed at a young age to history books and scientific texts. She married 5th March 1887 William Frend De Morgan.

William de Morgan and his Wife Chapter 5. Mary Evelyn Pickering was the eldest daughter of Percival Andree Pickering [aged 45], Q.C., Recorder of Pontefract, Attorney General for the County Palatine and sometime Treasurer of the Inner Temple. He married in 1853 Anna Maria Spencer-Stanhope [aged 31], who was herself the eldest daughter of John [aged 68] and Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope [aged 60], of Cannon Hall, Yorkshire.

On 10th January 1859 [her brother] John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope [aged 29] and [her sister-in-law] Elizabeth King [aged 23] were married. She the widow of Captain George Frederick Dawson. They lived at Hillhouse, Cawthorne until their house Sandroyd House, Cobham was completed.

On 26th August 1865 [her daughter] Anna Maria Wilhelmina Pickering was born to [her husband] Percival Andrée Pickering [aged 55] and Anna Spencer-Stanhope [aged 40].

On 30th October 1873 [her mother] Elizabeth Wilhelmina Coke [aged 78] died.

On 8th November 1873 [her father] John Spencer-Stanhope [aged 86] died. [her brother] Walter Spencer-Stanhope [aged 45] inherited Cannon Hall, South Yorkshire.

On 7th August 1876 [her husband] Percival Andrée Pickering [aged 66] died.

On 5th March 1887 [her son-in-law] William Frend De Morgan [aged 47] and [her daughter] Evelyn de Morgan aka Mary Evelyn Pickering [aged 31] were married.

On 23rd December 1901 Anna Spencer-Stanhope [aged 77] died.

William de Morgan and his Wife Chapter 5. Mrs. Pickering, on her father's side, came of two families, the Spencers and the Stanhopes, who had been settled in Yorkshire since the Middle Ages — a race of fine old country Squires of a type now rapidly becoming extinct, men who, generation after generation, trod reputably, each in the footsteps of his predecessor, and proved themselves, as occasion dictated, shrewd magistrates, bold sportsmen, brave soldiers, stout topers, profound scholars or fine gentlemen. But they were apparently men of simple lives and of single aims, for the two houses which they inhabited show little trace of the inveterate dilettante or collector, nor of any keen lover of art having resided in them.