Mrs Katherine Goolden

Identified on the album page as ‘Mrs Goolden,' this is probably Mrs Katherine Goolden, wife of Doctor Richard Goolden. She was born Katherine Naylor in Hammersmith in or about 1815. In 1838 she married Richard Henry Goolden in Kensington.

The 1851 census shows them living at 41 Sussex Gardens in Bayswater. Richard described himself as an ‘M.D. Queen’s College Oxford / Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.’ According to Alumni Oxonienses, he was furthermore a lecturer at King’s College, London. Also present on the night of the census were three young sons (Richard, Walter and Edwin) and three servants. The 1861 census shows them living at the same address, a stone's throw from Silvy studio. Their daughter Louisa was also present on the night of the 1861 census. The couple had at least one other son, George Barnett Goolden, who served in the Royal Navy, and another daughter, Elizabeth, who died unmarried in 1896.

Dr Goolden died at Bath on 10 March 1880, aged 69. The 1881 census shows his widow visiting Miss L. Fleming, a silversmith and jeweller, at The Grove House in Cookham, Berkshire. Mrs Goolden died, aged 67, at Cookham on 23 June 1882. The abstract of her will describes her as ‘late of 1 Sussex-gardens Hyde Park.' She left personal effects valued at £2591.

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London. An inked inscription verso in a period hand dates the portrait to August 1863.