Lady Charlotte Mary Bacon, née Harley (12 December 1801 – 9 May 1880), was the second daughter of Edward Harley, 5th Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer.Debrett, John; Collen, George William (1840).
Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland. revised, corrected and continued by G.W. Collen.
' London: William Pickering Her beauty as a child prompted

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...

to dedicate the first two

canto The canto () is a principal form of division in medieval and modern long poetry. Etymology and equivalent terms The word ''canto'' is derived from the Italian word for "song" or "singing", which comes from the Latin ''cantus'', "song", from the ...

s of '' Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'' to her, under the name "Ianthe".Gunn, John Alexander Wilson; Wiebe, Melvin George. eds. (2008). ''Benjamin Disraeli letters, Volume 7.'' University of Toronto Press, Lord Byron had been one of the many lovers of her mother,

Jane Elizabeth Scott Jane Elizabeth Harley, Countess of Oxford and Countess Mortimer (''née'' Scott; 1774–1824) was an English noblewoman, known as a patron of the Reform movement and a lover of Lord Byron. Life She was a daughter of the Reverend James Scott, M.A ...

. Lady Charlotte was also the subject of the painting ''Lady Charlotte Harley as Hebe'' by

Richard Westall Richard Westall (2 January 1765 – 4 December 1836) was an English painter and illustrator of portraits, historical and literary events, best known for his portraits of Byron. He was also Queen Victoria's drawing master. Biography We ...

. Byron biographer Benita Eisler has claimed that Byron sexually molested Lady Charlotte when she was eleven years old, stating that "In the period leading up to his marriage to Annabella Milbanke, early in 1815 yron..was enjoying an affair with the coolly promiscuous, forty-year-old militant Whig Lady Oxford harlotte’s motherin the course of which he sexually molested her eleven-year-old daughter, Lady Charlotte Harley, to whom, under the name of Ianthe, he dedicated the seventh printing of ''Childe Harold'', with attendant high-flown verses.” She married Captain (later Major General) Anthony Bacon in 1823. They had three children. He died in 1864 and the three children all moved to South Australia. She stayed with relatives in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

between 1865 and 1877, and

Charlotte Waters, Northern Territory Charlotte Waters was a tiny settlement in the Northern Territory of Australia located close to the South Australian border, not far from Aputula. It was known for its telegraph station, the Charlotte Waters Telegraph Station, which became a hub ...

was named in her honour by R. R. Knuckey and G. R. McMinn in 1871. Her son Harley Bacon had contributed food supplies to Charles Todd's survey team.

References

External links

''Lady Charlotte Harley as Hebe''
via National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty * Adam McCune
Naming 'Ianthe': Charlotte Harley and Byron's Classical Sources
1801 births 1880 deaths 19th-century English women Daughters of British earls Harley family Lord Byron Settlers of South Australia {{england-bio-stub