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
Edward Harley, 5th Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer (20 February 1773 – 28 December 1848) was an English nobleman.
Harley was the son of John Harley (dean of Windsor) and Roach Vaughan. Edward succeeded to the titles and estates (including th ...
.
[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 to dedicate the first two
cantos of ''
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
''Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'' is a long narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. The poem was published between 1812 and 1818. Dedicated to " Ianthe", it describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man, who is dis ...
'' 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. 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
Benita Eisler (born July 24, 1937, in New York City) is an American writer and educator. She is best known for her biographies of historic figures, including Lord Byron, Georgia O'Keeffe, and George Catlin.
Personal life
Eisler was born July 24 ...
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
Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron (''née'' Milbanke; 17 May 1792 – 16 May 1860), nicknamed Annabella and commonly known as Lady Byron, was wife of poet George Gordon Byron, more commonly known as Lord Byro ...
, early in 1815
yron
The Yron () is a long river in the Lorraine (region) of northeastern France. It rises in Vigneulles-lès-Hattonchâtel and runs generally northeast to join the Orne river at Conflans-en-Jarnisy
Conflans-en-Jarnisy () is a commune in the Meurt ...
..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 between 1865 and 1877, and
Charlotte Waters, Northern Territory was named in her honour by
R. R. Knuckey
Richard Randall Knuckey (26 September 1842 – 14 June 1914), often referred to as R.R. Knuckey and popularly known as Dick Knuckey, was a surveyor on the Overland Telegraph Line in central Australia from 1871 to 1872. He later became chief off ...
and
G. R. McMinn
Gilbert Rotherdale McMinn CE, SM, (1841 – 18 October 1924) was an Australian surveyor born in Ireland noted for his work in the Northern Territory surveying the Overland Telegraph Line. His middle name is occasionally spelt "Rutherdale".
E ...
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
* 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
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