\"Duchess of Sutherland\" Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower Clipped Signature for Sale

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\"Duchess of Sutherland\" Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower Clipped Signature For Sale

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\"Duchess of Sutherland\" Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower Clipped Signature:
$349.99

Up for sale "Duchess of Sutherland" Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower Clipped Signature Mounted Dated 1869.

1806 – 27 October 1868), styled The Honourable Harriet Howard before

her marriage, was Mistress of the 1846–1852, 1853–1858, and 1859–1861; and a great friend of Queen Victoria. She was an important figure in London's high

society, and used her social position to undertake various philanthropic

undertakings including the protest of the English ladies against American

slavery. Harriet was the third daughter of George

Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle and his wife Lady

Georgiana Cavendish, who was a daughter of the Georgiana, Duchess of

Devonshire.

On 18 May 1823 she married her cousin George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Earl Gower (1786–1861), who

had been elected MP for St Mawes, Cornwall (a rotten borough) in 1808, and succeeded his father as second

Duke of Sutherland in 1833. Gower was twenty years older than she, but their

union proved one of affection and produced four sons and seven daughters. The

Duchess of Sutherland held a social position of high influence, aided by her

friendship to Queen Victoria as

well as her family's great wealth.[3] By the Duchess's influence Stafford House, St.

James's Palace, became an important centre of society, and the starting-point

of various philanthropic undertakings. The Duchess helped organise the

"Stafford House Address" petition against slavery, and former

American First Lady Julia Tyler wrote a

defence of slavery titled "The Women of England vs. the Women of

America", in response to it. In response to "The Women of

England vs. the Women of America", former slave Harriet Jacobs wrote a letter to the New York

Tribune which was her first published writing; it was published in

1853 and signed "Fugitive". The

Duchess's stance on slavery was heavily criticised by Karl Marx because her mother-in-law, the previous

Duchess, had been closely associated with the clearance of the

inhabitants of Sutherland thirty years earlier, so

that she could reuse 794,000 acres (3200 km2) of land for commercial

sheep farming. On the accession of Queen Victoria the Duchess was

appointed Mistress of the Robes and

held that post whenever the Whigs were in office until her husband's death

(August 1837 to September 1841, July 1846 to March 1852, January 1853 to

February 1858, June 1859 to April 1861). In that role, she presided at

the coronation of Queen

Victoria in 1838. From the Queen's refusal to part with

the Duchess and her other ladies arose the Bedchamber Crisis of 1839, which resulted in the Whigs

returning to office. Victoria gave a sympathetic description of the Duchess's

character, and after the death of Prince Albert, the prince

consort, spent the first weeks of her widowhood with the Duchess as her only

companion. In 1861 the 4th Rogart Company of the 1st Sutherland Volunteer Rifle

Corps formed up. The company bore the title "Duchess Harriet's Company

Rogart" upon the pouch-belt plate. The Duchess's last public

appearance was at the Prince of Wales's marriage

in 1863. In that year she was seized with an illness from which she never

recovered. However, she was able to entertain Garibaldi, for whom she had great admiration, at Chiswick House and Trentham, Staffordshire,

during his visit to England in April 1864. She died on 27 October 1868 at

her London residence, Stafford House, aged 62. She was interred in the mausoleum of the Dukes of Sutherland at Trentham. W E Gladstone was one of the pall-bearers at her funeral.

The Duchess's letters, some of which were published by her son Lord Ronald

Gower in Stafford House Letters, parts iv-vi., prove her to have had

an affectionate disposition, with some sense of humour. She had also an

interest in architecture and gardening.