Frances (Fanny) was the third of five daughters of Robert Shirley and his second wife, Selina Finch. Frances was a noted beauty, with more than eight portraits made of her by well-known British portraitists, including Kneller. However, she never married. She spent much of her life at Heath Lane Lodge, Twickenham with her widowed mother. After her mother's death in 1762 Frances went to live in Bath but returned to Twickenham in 1775, leasing a property known as Walnut Tree House on the east side of the London Road.
Lady Huntingdon's Connexion
In 1739 Frances joined her niece's sect of Calvinistic Methodism, later to be known as Lady Huntingdon's Connexion. The Countess was the daughter of Frances's half-brother Washington Shirley, 2nd Earl Ferrers, who had leased a property on the riverside in Richmond from about 1722 until 1729. Lady Huntingdon founded 64 Chapels for the sect, one of which was at Bath, where eventually Frances chose to be buried, having also left the bulk of her estate to her niece.
According to Horace Walpole she bestowed "the dregs of her beauty on religion."
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Featured National Park champion connections: Frances is 14 degrees from Theodore Roosevelt, 16 degrees from Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, 14 degrees from George Catlin, 16 degrees from Marjory Douglas, 23 degrees from Sueko Embrey, 16 degrees from George Grinnell, 20 degrees from Anton Kröller, 15 degrees from Stephen Mather, 18 degrees from Kara McKean, 18 degrees from John Muir, 9 degrees from Victoria Hanover and 25 degrees from Charles Young on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.