Augusta Legge, Countess of Dartmouth

Augusta Legge, Countess of Dartmouth
Born 1822
Died 1900
Woodsome Hall

Augusta Legge, Countess of Dartmouth (1822–1900), born Lady Augusta Finch, was an English philanthropist.

Brought up in Warwickshire, she was the daughter of Heneage Finch, 5th Earl of Aylesford and his wife Augusta.[1]

She married William Legge, 5th Earl of Dartmouth on 9 June 1846.[2] They had two sons, William Legge, 6th Earl of Dartmouth (1851–1936), and the Honourable Sir Henry Legge (1852–1924), and four daughters, who died unmarried.

In 1853 she founded a Birmingham school in her former residence, Sandwell, when she and her husband moved to Patshull Hall, near Wolverhampton.[1] Laetitia Frances Selwyn ran Sandwell School which was open to girls to train as domestic servants. By the time it closed in 1891 it had extended its range to governesses and even industrial jobs irrespective of gender.[3]

She became a widow and she dedicated herself to good works including founding a local Mother's Union and a home for orphan boys.[1] She crossbred chickens to create the Andalusian Bantam.

She died after at Woodsome Hall near Huddersfield in 1900.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 K. D. Reynolds, ‘Legge , Augusta, countess of Dartmouth (1822–1900)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 12 March 2017
  2. ↑ K. D. Reynolds, ‘Legge , Augusta, countess of Dartmouth (1822–1900)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 12 March 2017
  3. ↑ A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 17, Offlow Hundred (Part), british-history.ac.uk, Retrieved 13 March 2017
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