Mrs Charles Waldo Sibthorpe

Identified in the Silvy day books as ‘Mrs Sibthorp’ and by an inked inscription on the mount as ‘C.E.M. Waldo Sibthorp’, this is Charlotte Elizabeth Mary Waldo Sibthorp née Ellison.

Born at Boultham in Lincolnshire on 29 January 1833, she was the eldest daughter of Colonel Richard Ellison of Boultham Hall and his wife Charlotte née Chetwynd.

At Boultham on 18 February 1854 she married Charles Coningsby Waldo Sibthorpe, second son of Colonel Charles de Laet Waldo Sibthorp of Canwick Hall, Lincolnshire, the much mocked Ultra-Tory politician, who for nearly three decades sat as the M.P. for Lincoln. One of Parliament’s most reactionary members, he stoutly opposed Catholic Emancipation, the emancipation of the Jews in England, the Reform Act of 1832, the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the 1851 Great Exhibition. He was convinced that any changes from the Britain of his youth were signs of degeneracy, that the country was about to go bankrupt, and that the new railways were a passing fad which would soon give way to a return to stagecoaches. His political views, and the bluntness with which he expressed them, made him the target of numerous jokes and cartoons in Punch.

Charlotte and Charles fils appear on the 1861 census living at 46 Chester Square in London. Charles Coningsby Waldo Sibthorp gave retired Captain in the 1st Dragoons as his profession. Born in 1817, he was 16 years older than his wife. At the time of the 1891 census, the couple were living at 26 Prince’s Gardens in Knightsbridge. Also present on the night of the census were five live-in servants.

Captain Waldo Sibthorp died at his residence, 26 Prince’s Gardens, London, on 14 April 1896 (Lincolnshire Chronicle, 24 April 1896). He left an estate valued at £33,020.

Charlotte died at the same address on 2 September 1906. Her estate was valued at £45,686. She was buried in the churchyard at Boultham. According to a report on her funeral that appeared in the Lincolnshire Chronicle (7 September 1906): ‘The vault was becomingly decorated with ivy and white asters […] The coffin, which was polished oak with brass furniture, was borne by six workmen on the Boultham estate.’ The report lists many of the mourners who were present.

Photographed on 5 October 1860 by Camille Silvy of London.