Mlle Sofia de Zulueta

Mlle Sofia de Zulueta


Identified in the Silvy daybooks as 'Mademoiselle de Zuluetta' [sic], this is Sofia Josefa de Zulueta (died 1925), elder daughter of Pedro Jose de Zulueta, [2nd] count of Torre Díaz, of the London bank of Zulueta & Co., and his wife, Sophia Ann Wilcox, who was of Scottish and Dutch ancestry.

The family appear on the 1861 census, living at 21 Devonshire Place, London. Her father gave his profession as 'Senator of Spain' and Sophia gave her age as 21 and her birthplace as London.

She married Rafael Merry del Val (1831–1917), Marquess of Merry del Val, secretary to the Spanish legation in London, a monarchist supporter of Alfonso XII. The del Vals were an Aragonese family originally from Zaragoza, claiming descent from a twelfth-century Breton crusader; the surname Merry came from a line of Irish merchants from County Waterford, Ireland, who settled in Seville in the late eighteenth century. The marriage produced four sons, including Alfonso, Marquess of Merry del Val (born 1864), who was Spanish ambassador to the United Kingdom between 1913 and 1931, and Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val y Zulueta, born at the Spanish embassy in London in 1865.

Sofia Josefa Merry del Val y Zulueta died in 1925.

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London on 29 May 1861.


 


Code: 126146
© Paul Frecker 2024