Noel, Anne Isabella, 15th Baroness Wentworth

NOBLEMAN, TRAVELLER (ENGLAND)
BORN 22 Sep 1837, London - DIED 15 Dec 1917, Sheykh Obeyd (near Caïro)
GRAVE LOCATION Sheykh Obeyd (near Caïro): Jebel Ahmar nun cemetery

Daughter of Augusta Ada Byron (Countess Lovelace) and grand daughter of the famous Lord Byron. She was raised largely by her grandmother, Annabella Milbanke and spent much of her youth at the continent. She had a great talent for drawing and studied under John Ruskin. She also owned two Stradivarius violins and practiced five hours a day.

At the time she met the poet, diplomat and horse-breeder Wilfrid Scawen Blunt in Venice she spoke fluently French, German, Italian and Spanish. They married on 8 Jun 1869. Two months after the wedding she miscarried and this would happen several more times.

She was known as an excellent rider and together they travelled on horseback through the Mid-East, where she learned to speak Arab fluently. Their only daughter Judith married Neville S. Bulwer-Lytton (the son of Edward Bulwer Lytton) in Cairo in 1899. In later years the Brunts drifted apart and in 1905 a young woman named Dorothy Carleton moved in with Wilfrid in England. They seperated and Anne lived mainly in Cairo. An attempt to reconciliation failed in 1915. In 1917 she succeeded her niece Ada Mary as baroness, but she died soon afterwards.

She wrote about her travels in "A Pilgrimage to Nejd".

Family
• Mother: Byron, Ada, Lady Lovelace
• Daughter: Blunt-Lytton, Judith Anne Dorothea, 16th Baroness Wentworth
• Husband: Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen (1869-, London)

Related persons
• was pupil of Ruskin, John

Sources
• Gordon, Armstead C., Allegra, the story of Byron and Miss Clairmont, Methuen, London, 1927


Noël, Léon

Published: 01 Jan 2006
Last update: 20 May 2023