British socialite
Harmony in Pink and Grey (
Portrait of Lady Meux
)
, by
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
, 1881,
Frick Collection
Arrangement in Black, No. 5 (Portrait of Lady Meux)
, James McNeill Whistler, 1881, Honolulu Academy of Arts in Hawaii.
Valerie Susan, Lady Meux
(pronounced "Mews";
[1]
nee
Langdon
; 1852?1910), was a Devon-born socialite of the
Victorian era
.
[2]
She was the wife of
Sir Henry Bruce Meux, 3rd Baronet
(1856?1900), who came from one of Britain’s richest brewing dynasties,
Meux’s Brewery
, founded in 1764, which was a major brewer of porter ale in London in the 19th century.
Early life
[
edit
]
Langdon was born in
Crockernwell
,
Drewsteignton
,
Devon
on 27 February 1852.
[3]
Married life
[
edit
]
Sir Henry Meux, 3rd Baronet
and Lady Meux
Langdon claimed to have been an actress, but was apparently on the stage for only a single season.
[4]
She worked at the
Surrey Music Hall
in a pantomime.
[5]
She is believed to have met Sir Henry Meux at the Casino de Venise in
Holborn
, where she worked as a
banjo
-playing barmaid and had a stage name Val Langdon.
[6]
[7]
She married him in London on 27 October 1878.
[3]
Never accepted by her husband's family or by polite society, Lady Meux was a flamboyant and controversial figure, given to driving herself around London in a high
phaeton
, drawn by a pair of
zebras
.
[8]
Their house at
Theobalds
in Hertfordshire was lavishly improved and enlarged; additions included a swimming pool and an indoor
roller skating
rink.
[9]
In 1887, at Lady Meux's request, the dismantled
Temple Bar Gate
was purchased from the
City of London Corporation
, transported to
Theobalds Park
in Hertfordshire and carefully rebuilt as a new gateway to the estate. She often entertained in the upper chamber of the gateway. Guests included the
Prince of Wales
and
Winston Churchill
.
[9]
Sir Henry died in 1900, without issue, ten years before she did.
[10]
Whistler
[
edit
]
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
painted three portraits of Lady Meux in 1881. The portraits were the first full-scale commissions to be given to Whistler following the notorious
Ruskin trial
, which had left him financially bankrupt.
Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux
currently belongs to the
Frick Collection
in
New York City
,
Arrangement in Black: Lady Meux
belongs to the
Honolulu Museum of Art
while the third portrait,
Portrait of Lady Meux in Furs
, is believed to have been destroyed by Whistler after he became outraged over a comment made to him by Lady Meux during a sitting.
[11]
Interests
[
edit
]
Lady Meux also owned a string of
race horses
, racing them under the assumed name of Mr. Theobolds. As an owner she was not greatly successful, but she won the
Sussex Stakes
with
Ardeshir
in 1897.
[12]
She was a noted collector of
ancient Egyptian
artefacts; the Egyptologist
Wallis Budge
published a catalogue of more than 1,700 of her items including 800
scarabs
and
amulets
. He dedicated his publication,
The Book of Paradise
, to her. She tried to leave the collection to the
British Museum
, but the trustees snobbishly declined the bequest and it was sold. She also acquired five illustrated Ethiopic manuscripts, and Budge published a coloured facsimile of them. On finding that they were revered by the Ethiopians, she left them in her will to Emperor
Menelik
. The courts set aside this provision, ostensibly, to keep them in Britain ? and they were sold to
William Randolph Hearst
, of California.
[13]
The Boer War
[
edit
]
A QF 12-pounder naval gun of the "Elswick Battery". Lady Meux paid for six naval 12-pounder artillery guns to be sent out on special field carriages to the British troops.
During the
Second Boer War
, the early British reverses made headline news and the defence of
Ladysmith
made a particular impression on Lady Meux. On hearing of the landing of naval guns for the
Battle of Ladysmith
,
[14]
she ordered, at her own expense, six
naval 12-pounders
on special field carriages made by
Armstrong
of Elswick. The guns were sent directly to
Lord Roberts
in South Africa, because they had been refused by the
War Office
. The unit which manned these guns were known as the "
Elswick Battery
". The battery was in action several times, including the Second
Battle of Silkaatsnek
.
[15]
[16]
Sir Hedworth Lambton
[
edit
]
Captain Hedworth Lambton. Caricature by
Spy
in
Vanity Fair
, 1900
When
Sir Hedworth Lambton
, the commander of the Naval Brigade at Ladysmith, returned to England, he called on Lady Meux at Theobalds to thank her for her gift and recount his adventures. She was so taken with him that she made him the chief beneficiary of her will, on condition that he change his surname to Meux (she was without direct heirs). When she died on 20 December 1910, he willingly changed his name by
Royal Warrant
,
[17]
and inherited the Hertfordshire estate and a substantial interest in the
Meux Brewery
.
[18]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Mereworth to Naas"
. Retrieved
20 December
2014
.
- ^
"
'Banjo-playing Victorian prostitute' Lady Meux's rare gun sold"
.
BBC News
. 9 December 2020
. Retrieved
9 December
2020
.
- ^
a
b
Wilson, R. G. (2004). "Meux Family".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/97889
.
- ^
Frick Collection,
The Frick Collection, An Illustrated Catalogue, Vol. 1, Paintings: American, British, Dutch, Flemish, and German
, New York, Frick Collection, p. 18,
ISBN
0-691-03811-2
.
- ^
Bradburn, Elizabeth (21 November 2022).
Margaret McMillan: Portrait of a Pioneer
. Taylor & Francis.
ISBN
978-1-000-77828-1
.
- ^
Bradburn, Elizabeth,
Margaret McMillan: Portrait of a Pioneer
, London, Routledge, 1989, p. 29.
- ^
Glancey, Jonathan, Temple of Doom,
The Guardian
, Wednesday 17 November 2004.
- ^
"The Third Family of Captain John Francis Hyde"
. Retrieved
20 April
2018
.
- ^
a
b
"Theobalds Park"
. Archived from
the original
on 14 January 2011
. Retrieved
20 December
2014
.
- ^
"Oxford University Press - OUP - UK Official Home Page of Oxford University Press - Oxford Books"
. Retrieved
20 December
2014
.
- ^
The Correspondence of James Mcneill Whistler - Valerie Susan Meux
- ^
"Horseracing Online - Profile Unavailable"
. Retrieved
20 December
2014
.
- ^
"Virtual Egyptian Museum - The Full Collection"
. Retrieved
20 December
2014
.
- ^
"British Weaponry"
. 8 October 2019.
- ^
"Elswick Battery"
. Anglo-Boer War.
- ^
"Northumberland Artillery"
. Retrieved
20 December
2014
.
- ^
"- Person Page 2748"
. Retrieved
20 December
2014
.
- ^
"History In Portsmouth"
. Archived from
the original
on 5 March 2012
. Retrieved
20 December
2014
.
External links
[
edit
]
Media related to
Lady Meux
at Wikimedia Commons