| Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith | |
|---|---|
Hester Maria "Queeney" Thrale (left) aged 15, with her mother Hester Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1781) |
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| Born | 17 September 1764 Southwark, England |
| Died | 31 March 1857 (aged 92) London, England |
| Spouse | George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith |
Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith born Hester Maria Thrale (17 September 1764 – 31 March 1857) was a British literary correspondent and intellectual. She was the eldest child of Hester Thrale, diarist, author and confidante of Samuel Johnson, and Henry, a wealthy brewer and patron of the arts. She became the second wife of George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith.
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Johnson gave Hester Maria her lifelong nickname "Queeney" (after Queen Esther)[1] early in her childhood, and was a regular correspondent of the little girl as well as of her mother. Queeney Thrale was born in Southwark, where her father's brewery was situated, and grew up mainly at the family home, Streatham Park in South London, which was the focus of an important coterie of political, artistic and literary figures known as the Streatham Worthies. She showed early signs of a good memory and sharp intellect, and by age six she was regarded as a greater prodigy than her intelligent and accomplished mother.[2] She studied Latin with Dr Johnson, working alongside the novelist Fanny Burney, another family protegée, and also Italian and Hebrew. She was painted by Zoffany[3] at 20 months, and she and her mother were the joint subjects of a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1781, as were other members of the Streatham park circle.
Queeney's early life and accomplishments were recorded in The Family Book and Thraliana, which Hester Thrale began on her eldest daughter's second birthday.[4] The Family Book records Queeney's childhood and education, her grasp of languages, astronomy, geography and other subjects. Thraliana details her liking for the notorious Mad Jack Fuller,[5] whose proposal of marriage was later rejected by her sister Susannah. After her husband's death in 1781 Hester Thrale married her children's Italian music teacher, a Roman Catholic, causing public scandal and a rift with her children, particularly Queeney, who went on to make an independent London life for herself with a respectable widowed friend as chaperone.[6]
On 10 January 1808, aged 44, Queeney Thrale married the widowed Admiral Lord Keith, a distinguished and celebrated senior Naval officer 19 years her senior who had amassed a considerable fortune from prize-money during the Napoleonic wars. They had met in 1791, four years after the death of Lord Keith's first wife, and corresponded for 16 years before their marriage. Lord and Lady Keith were a prominent and well-connected society couple: they had one daughter, the Hon Georgina Augusta, born in December 1809, and the baby's sponsors were the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence, both future kings of the United Kingdom.[7]
After Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, Lord Keith retired from the Navy and the family lived mainly on their large estate at Tulliallan, where they had a magnificent castle constructed which is now the Scottish Police College. Left a wealthy widow when their daughter was 13, Lady Keith lived another 34 years, dying in Picadilly, London on 31 March 1857, aged 92. She is buried in the Keith family mausoleum with her husband and daughter.
The "Queeney letters", a large collection of letters addressed to Queeney by Johnson, Fanny Burney and her mother Hester was published in 1934.[8]