Edith Harriet Milner

Born at Bolton Percy in Yorkshire on 26 February 1845, Edith Harriet Milner was the daughter of Sir William Mordaunt Edward Milner, 5th Bt., and his wife Lady Georgiana Anne née Lumley. She never married.

She appears on the 1861 census, aged 16, living with her parents, six younger siblings, a governess and twelve servants at 24 Adelaide Crescent in Hove. In 1871 she is living at the family’s ancestral seat Nun Appleton Hall, a former priory at Appleton Roebuck in Yorkshire, where the widowed Lady Milner had fifteen servants to run her household.

In 1881 Edith was living her aunt and her family at 60 Prince’s Gate in London, on the south side of Hyde Park, but by 1891 she was ‘Living on [her] own means’ in York in a house called ‘The Cottage’ on Heworth Grove. The rest of the household comprised a housekeeper, a housemaid, a lady’s maid and footman. At the time of the 1901 she was visiting Ellen Fielden at Dobroyd Castle near Tordmorden in Lancashire. In 1911 she was living – with five servants – at Heworth Moor House in York.

She died at Heworth Moor House on 16 May 1921, aged 76. She was buried in the churchyard of St John’s Church at Acaster Selby in North Yorkshire. Her estate was valued at £8087.

Photographed by Hennah and Kent of Brighton.