Lady Mary Abney

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Mary Abney (née Gunston) (1676- January 12, 1750), inherited the Manor of Stoke Newington in the eartly 1700s, which lies about five miles north of St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London. She had a great influence on the design and landscaping of Abney Park which inspired many of Dr Isaac Watts' poems and hymns.

1 Life at the Manor
2 Links to the 'Religious Revival'
3 Death and Charity
4 References

[edit] Life at the Manor

The Manor of Stoke Newington, a small farming community, had been owned and managed directly by St Paul's Cathedral until the early 1600s, after which they granted it to a succession of private Lords of the Manor, beginning with William Patten.

In 1701, following the untimely death of Mary's brother, Thomas Gunston, the manor became her property; though at that date, since she had married Sir Thomas Abney, it would formally have passed to her husband by the rights of marriage that applied at that time until he died. Mary Abney's husband, Sir Thomas Abney (1640-1722) was a Lord Mayor of London for the first year of their marriage in 1700, and had business interests in the City of London. Sir Thomas, some `thirty-six years senior to Mary Abney, already leased a mansion at Theobalds in Hertfordshire when Mary Abney married him, but use of the less grand Abney House as the family's second residence, was frequently convenient and much enjoyed by their houseguest, Isaac Watts.

Almost immediately, upon title passing to Mary and Sir Thomas Abney, Mary Abney (recently entitled to be called 'Lady' due to the knighthood of her husband by King William), began to complete her deceased brother's new manor house at Abney Park, later known as 'Abney House', and commissioned the first map and survey of the Manor. With the assistance of Isaac Watts, Lady Mary Abney is said to have planned much the planting and landscaping of Abney Park, which included two great elm avenues which became favourite walks of Watts, leading down to a secluded island heronry in the Hackney Brook where he found inspiration for his writings.

Following the death of her husband, Lady Mary Abney became fully installed in her own right as the first female Lady of the Manor; one of only a few women elevated to such a position in early Eighteenth century English society. Some years after the death of her husband, in 1736, Lady Mary Abney moved her household completely from her husband's mansion in Hertfordshire, choosing to live full-time at the more modest Abney House surrounded by the many nonconformist and literary families for which the village of Stoke Newington was noted. Here her household continued to include her nonconformist chaplain Isaac Watts as a long-term guest, as well as one of her three daughters, the unmarried Miss Elizabeth Abney.

[edit] Links to the 'Religious Revival'

Lady Abney was of an Independent religious faith (known as 'Congregational', after the 1830s), as was her husband Sir Thomas Abney and long-term houseguest Dr Isaac Watts. Throughout the year when Sir Thomas held office as Lord Mayor, and Mary Abney was Lady Mayoress, they both had to practice occasional conformity to the Church of England, as required by law. Similarly, as Lady of the Manor, Mary Abney had to uphold the general conformity of the parish church of the Stoke Newington Manor.

Privately, as an Independent, she was close friend of the radical revivalist Methodist Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon who formed her own religious group within the Methodist movement, despite the best efforts of the Anglican authorities to prevent this. The Countess financed many revivalist causes, including the preacher Whitefield; and in her later years, she helped sponsor the visit to Britain of the African slavery abolitionist Olandah Equiano, following which he settled and married.

Lady Mary Abney, who died before the cause of slavery emancipation became central to evangelical revivalists, was primarily the sponsor of the first notable hymnologist, Isaac Watts, whose famous hymns include O God our help in ages past. Watts was also a poet and scholar; a writer of many learned books which which were written for children and for universities, becoming standard texts in the New World as well as in Britain. Lady Abney was one of his main benefactors from the early 1700s onwards, and probably his sole benefactor from 1734 until his death on November 25, 1748, following which she built a memorial to Watts in Bunhill Fields, co-financed with Sir John Hartopp.

[edit] Death and Charity

Following Mary Abney's own death in 1750, at the age of 73, she was buried near her brother beneath the chancel of Old Stoke Newington Church, which overlooks today's Clissold Park.

The Manor of Stoke Newington, together with Abney House and Abney Park, were inherited by one of Lady Abney's daughters, Elizabeth Abney (c1704-1782) who managed the estate, along with another at Tilford in the parish of Farnham, Surrey. Elizabeth Abney died a spinster aged 78 on 20 August 1782 and in her will directed that her estates be sold and all proceeds be given to nonconformist charities.