Georgiana Chatterton

Georgiana, Lady Chatterton, later Mrs Dering (née Iremonger; 11 November 1806 – 6 February 1876) was a British traveller and author.

Life

Henrietta Georgiana Marcia Lascelles Iremonger was born at 24 Arlington Street, Piccadilly, London, on 11 November 1806, the only child of the Rev. Lascelles Iremonger (died 6 January 1830), prebendary of Winchester Cathedral, and his second wife, the former Harriett Gambier, youngest sister of Admiral Lord James Gambier.

On 3 August 1824, she married Sir William Abraham Chatterton, 2nd Baronet of Castle Mahon, County Cork. The Great Irish Famine in 1845–51 deprived her husband of his rents. They retired to a small house at Bloxworth, Dorset, until 1852, when they moved to Rolls Park, Essex, where Sir William died on 5 August 1855.

On 1 June 1859, the widow married a fellow novelist, Edward Heneage Dering (born 1827, youngest son of John Dering, rector of Pluckley, Kent, and prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral), who had retired from the army in 1851. They took up residence in 1869 with her ward and niece, Rebecca Ferrers (née Orpen), and her husband Marmion, the last old squire of Baddesley Clinton Hall, Warwickshire.^[1] There, Marmion and Dering took to wearing 17th-century costume. Twenty years Georgiana's junior, Dering was the author of the novels Lethelier and A Great Sensation (1862).^[2] Within six years of their marriage, Dering was received into the Roman Catholic Church. She herself wavered, but after a correspondence with William Bernard Ullathorne, Bishop of Birmingham, she converted in August 1875.

Georgiana Dering died at Baddesley Clinton Hall on 6 February 1876, aged 69.^[1]

Writings

Lady Chatterton's first book, Aunt Dorothy's Tales, was published anonymously in two volumes in 1837. Two years later came Rambles in the South of Ireland, whose first edition sold out in a few weeks. After this she wrote many tales, novels, poems, and accounts of travels under the name Georgiana Chatterton.^[3]

Cardinal John Henry Newman praised the refinement of thought in her later fiction. More recently, however, her work has been described as banal and called "uniformly unmemorable".^[1]

Publications

1. Aunt Dorothy's Tales anonymous, 1837
2. Rambles in the South of Ireland 1839, ²1839
3. A Good Match, The Heiress of Drosberg, and The Cathedral Chorister 1840; another edition, 1868
4. Home Sketches and Foreign Recollections 1841
5. The Pyrenees, with Excursions into Spain 1843
6. Allanston, or the Infidel 1843
7. Lost Happiness, or the Effects of a Lie a tale, 1845
8. Reflections on the History of the Kings of Judah 1848
9. Extracts from Jean Paul F. Richter 1851
10. Compensation anonymous, 1856
11. Life and its Realities 1857
12. The Reigning Beauty 1858
13. Memorials of Admiral Lord Gambier 1861
14. Selections from the Works of Plato 1862
15. The Heiress and her Lovers 1863
16. Leonore, a Tale, and other Poems 1864
17. Quagmire ahead privately printed, 1864
18. Grey's Court edited by Lady Chatterton, 1865
19. Oswald of Deira a drama, 1867
20. A Plea for Happiness and Hope privately printed, 1867
21. Country Coteries 1868
22. The Oak original tales and sketches by Sir J. Bowring, Lady Chatterton, and others, 1869
23. Lady May a pastoral poem, 1869
24. The Lost Bride 1872
25. Won at last 1874
26. Extracts from Aristotle's Work privately printed, 1875
27. Misgiving privately printed, 1875
28. Convictions privately printed, 1875
29. The Consolation of the Devout Soul by J. Frassinetti, translated by Lady Chatterton, 1876

References

1. ODNB entry on Chatterton, Lady Henrietta Georgiana Marcia Lascelles. ; retrieved 13 November 2012 (Pay-walled)
2. Catalogue 200 (London: Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers, 2012); ISBN 978 1 900718-91-2.
3. Literary Heritage: Georgiana Chatterton profile

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Chatterton, Henrietta Georgiana Marcia Lascelles". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.