Lady Skelmersdale

Born Lady Alice Villiers on 17 September 1841, she was the daughter of George William Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon [the English diplomat and statesman Lord Clarendon] and Lady Katherine née Grimston. On 16 August 1860 she married William Bootle-Wilbraham, 2nd Baron Skelmersdale. On 3 May 1880 he was created 1st Earl of Lathom and Lady Skelmersdale became the Countess of Lathom. She died on 23 November 1897, killed in a carriage accident.

The following report of her death appeared in the Times (24 November 1897): ‘We regret to announce the death of the Countess of Lathom as the result of a carriage accident yesterday. It seems that Lady Lathom was driving a phaeton drawn by two horses, and seated with her in the vehicle were Lady Leitrim and Lady Evelyn Mason, while a coachman sat behind. Her ladyship was driving home to Lathom-house, Ormskirk, so as to superintend arrangements for the dinner party when the shooting party got back. When the vehicle was entering Lathom-park from Dalton one of the reins which Lady Lathom held slackened and got under the tail of one of the horses. This irritated the animal, and made it restive. It swerved aside and one of the wheels of the phaeton struck against a heap of stones. Both horses became unmanageable, and as a result the vehicle was overturned, and the three ladies were thrown out. Lady Leitrim and Lady Evelyn Mason were thrown into the road and sustained no injury beyond slight bruises. Lady Lathom, however, was cast on to the margin of a roadside ditch, and a horse sees to have kicked her into the water. The ladies with the help of the coachman got Lady Lathom out of the ditch as rapidly as possible, but it was at once perceived that she had sustained very serious injury, and was unconscious. The coachman immediately brought Drs. Morris and Pendlebury to the spot, and these gentlemen had the injured lady removed on an ambulance to Lathom-house, where everything possible was done. Meanwhile, a mounted messenger was despatched to give the sad information to Lord Lathom, who was with the shooting party. His lordship rode rapidly home, and arrived at Lathom-house just in time to see his wife die. So far as could be ascertained the Countess succumbed partly to the effect of concussion of the brain and partly to that of immersion in water.’

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London in 1860.