The Honourable Mrs Richard Smythe

[Identified on the album page as the ‘Hon. Mrs Smith,’ the portrait on the opposite page, by the same photographer, is of the Honourable Mrs Stourton. This is therefore probably the Honourable Eleonora Mary Smythe, who had been the aunt of the Honourable Fermina Stourton’s husband.]

Born and baptised on 1 January 1820 at Allerton Park in Yorkshire, the Honourable Eleonora Mary Stourton was the daughter of William Joseph Stourton, 18th Baron Stourton, and his wife Catherine Winifred née Weld.

On the 23 January 1844 at Allerton Park she married Richard Peter Carrington Smythe, a Lieutenant in the 8th Hussars and the eldest son of Sir Edward Joseph Smythe, 6th Baronet of Acton Burnell, Shropshire. Both the bride and groom’s families were Roman Catholic.

Her husband died at Wootton House in Warwickshire on 14 September 1853.

She appears as the Honourable Laura Smythe on the 1861 census, a widow living with her mother Lady Catherine Stourton, recorded as the ‘widow of a peer,’ in the parish of St Lawrence, York. Her mother died in York the following year, leaving an estate valued at £1500.

In 1871 she was again recorded as ‘Laura’ Smythe, a widow living with her widowed niece [by marriage], the Honourable Fermina Stourton, at Redbourn House, Redbourn, Hertfordshire.

The Honourable Eleonora Mary Carrington Smythe died, aged 79, at Stewart’s Hotel in Bournemouth on 7 September 1899, leaving an estate valued at £2416. Her executrix was her niece, the Honourable Fermina Stourton.

Photographed by Thomas North of Dublin.

[From an album compiled by Frank Langton (1840-1917), a Roman Catholic who for many years was Private Secretary to a succession of Postmasters General.]