Mary Barbara Chichester later Lady Chichester born Mary Clifford became Mary Barbara Constable (29 October 1801 – 14 December 1876) was an English Catholic diarist.

Life

She was born in Tixall Hall in 1801. Her parents were Mary MacDonald and Thomas Hugh Clifford. Her father was a topographer and botanist who would take the family name of Clifford Constable in 1821. She had a brother, a sister and a strict Catholic upbringing. In 1822 she started a diary, characteristically while travelling, in this case to

Ghent Ghent ( ; ; historically known as ''Gaunt'' in English) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the Provinces of Belgium, province ...

. In 1826 Mary Clifford Constable married her cousin Charles Chichester, an army officer. He had been brought up a Catholic, attending

Stonyhurst College Stonyhurst College or Stonyhurst is a co-educational Catholic Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing education for boarding school, boarding and day school, day pupils, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition. It is ...

. They had 11 children, with five surviving their childhood. She lived at Calverleigh Court until 1835 when she followed her husband, living at Pau; and then in 1837 they were in British North America. Her husband was knighted at St James Palace in 1840 and that autumn they sailed west to be based in Trinidad. In 1842-3 they were in still in

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

where her husband was the acting Lieutenant Governor. They then went to North America where she was able to visit the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

and see

Niagara Falls Niagara Falls is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the Canada–United States border, border between the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York (s ...

. On 6 April 1847 she completed her husband's diary after he had died after four days of abdominal pain. She returned to England before moving to Paris where she witnessed the 1848 revolution. She visited France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium in the 1850s and she completed her life by travelling between locations in Britain.

Death and legacy

Chichester died in

South Kensington South Kensington is a district at the West End of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the ra ...

in 1876 after an abscess on her thigh. Her portrait by Claude Marie Dubufe is at

Burton Constable Hall Burton Constable Hall is a large Elizabethan English country house, country house in England, with 18th- and 19th-century interiors and a fine 18th-century cabinet of curiosities. The hall, a Grade I listed building, is set in a park designed b ...

. Her diaries and papers are held with those of her husband at Hull University Archives. The records start with letters before her marriage.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chichester, Mary 1801 births 1876 deaths People from Staffordshire 19th-century English diarists Wives of knights English women diarists 19th-century English women writers