The Honourable Charlotte Preston

Baptised at Stamullen in County Meath on 22 August 1841, the Honourable Charlotte Agnes Mary Preston was the youngest of the three daughters of Edward Anthony John Preston, later 13th Viscount Gormanston, the Premier Viscount of Ireland. Her mother was Lucretia née Jerningham.

On 21 June 1870 at the Roman Catholic chapel in Chelsea she married Colonel Richard Donaldson of Hartlands, County Meath. Their marriage appears to have been childless.

Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Donaldson died, aged 63, on 27 May 1898 ‘after a long illness, the result of a chill caught in Dublin while attending to his duties as Gentleman Usher to the Dublin Court last winter, for Colonel Donaldson had been official connected with the Castle for several decades. […] It is as a sportsman we would speak of Colonel Donaldson, and here he occupies a very high place, as not only was he indefatigable in promoting foxhunting in the Royal shire of Meath, but, perhaps, as an exponent of the art of riding over a confessedly large country, where riding calls for head as well as for hands and heels, he had but few equals. […] The Colonel, who never commanded a large stud, or hunters of immense market value, could ride almost anything’ (The Field, 4 June 1898).

The Honourable Mrs Donaldson died on 18 April 1924, leaving an estate valued at £791.

‘The Hon. Charlotte Donaldson, who had attained 84 years of age, passed away at Hartlands, Clonmellon. She was the widow of the late Col. Richard Donaldson’ (Dublin Evening Telegraph, 21 April 1924).

Photographed by Ferdinand Joubert of London.