Talk:Jane Apreece

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Davy dedicated his famous volume of Chemical Lectures to her (I812); and took her on several continental tours to France, Italy and Austria. On the first of these they were accompanied by the young and inexperienced scientist Michael Faraday, whom she treated with unkindness and disdain, an ill omen of future difficulties within the household.

Jane Apreece was a distant cousin of Sir Walter Scott, who once accompanied her on a tour of the Highlands, and subsequently made several shrewd observations on her character in his Letters and Journals. She was also a lifelong friend of the Regency wit, the Rev Sydney Smith, who always mocked her marriage to Davy. She was small, dark, vivacious and incorrigeable, dining out for many years in London and Rome on merry reminiscences of her brilliant husband. There is, unfortunately, no known portrait of her in a public collection (which would surely be revealing); and no biography to date.