The Hon. Lily Wellesley

Magdalen 'Lily' Montagu - Queen Victoria's 'dearest Lily' - was born the third daughter of General Sir Henry Montagu, 6th Baron Rokeby of Armagh, at Marylebone, London, in or around 1832.

On 16 September 1856 at St Mary’s, Bryanston Square, she married Gerald Valerian Wellesley (1809-1882), Dean of Windsor and Chaplain to the Queen. Her husband’s uncle was the 1st Duke of Wellington, and his brother was the 1st Earl Cowley. The marriage produced one son, who died when he was eighteen years old.

The Honourable Mrs Wellesley appears on the 1861 census visiting her parents at Hazlewood Mansion in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire.

After the death of her husband in 1882, she was appointed an Extra Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria. For her services, she was awarded the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert (4th Class).

The Honourable Mrs Wellesley died on 30 September 1919. According to the announcement of her death in the Times, she died at Farnham Royal, Slough, aged 88, and the funeral was at St Andrew's at Clewer in Berkshire.

Photographed by Hills and Saunders of Eton and Oxford.

An inked inscription verso in a period hand reads: 'Fair hair more dark blonde than mine, dress white muslin, eyes dark to hazel. My sister Hon.ble Mrs Wellesley' [punctuation added].