Lucie (Austin) Duff-Gordon (1821 - 1869)

Born 24 Jun 1821 in Westminster, London, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 14 Jul 1869 at age 48 in On board the dahabia Urania, a passenger carrying boat on the River Nile in Egypt

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Biography

Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon, was an English translator author who wrote initially as Lucy Auston and later under the name Lucie Gordon.

Lucie was friends with the North family and used to spend many of her school holidays with Frederick North and his family in Hastings and Gawthorpe. She attended a school in Bromley Common run by a Miss Shepherd.

Lucie seems to have a been an attractive and headstrong young woman and being some 9 years older than Frederick's daughter Marianne she made a great impression on her. When Marianne wrote her autobiography Recollections of a Happy Life in later life, Lucie was written about in glowing terms and in some depth.

[Lucie] inspired me with the most profound respect and admiration, as one raised above ordinary mortals. Her grand eyes and deep-toned voice, her entire fearlessness and contempt for what people thought of her, charmed me ; then she had a tame snake, and must surely have been something more than a woman to take a snake!

Marianne describes Lucie carrying and wearing her pet snake up her sleeve, even trying to wear it in her hair to a "dinner party of stiff people" bringing Mrs North to the verge of tears.

She would spent hours at a time reading Shakespeare aloud.

Lucie's mother was a Unitarian and Lucie may have been baptised in that faith but when the infant Catherine North was to be baptised in 1837 Lucie decided she also wanted to be christened. She wrote and got permission from her father and on 23 Dec she was baptised at St Clement's Church in Hastings. The baptism gives her father's occupation as Barrister at Law and says that her parents were living in Malta at the time.^[1][2] Lord Monteagle, Miss Shepherd her teacher and Janet North were her sponsors. Marianne recollects:

I well remember the curious scene of our good old Rector [John Goodge Foyster] in a highly nervous state, performing the ceremony for the baby in arms and the magnificent lady of eighteen in the ugly old church of St. Clements.

Soon after her baptism Lucie got engaged to Alexander Duff Gordon, who Marianne describes as "a very handsome man" and he would come and visit Lucie at the Norths for weeks at a time. Marianne describes them walking around together "wound up in one plaid, both smoking." A favourite spot being the roof at Gawthorpe, perhaps for the view and privacy and perhaps also to annoy Mrs North who worried what the neighbours would think.^[3]

The story of their engagement was recounted by Lucie's daughter in the memoir section of 'Letters from Egypt', a collection her Lucie's letters published by her daughter.

many new friends were made, among them Sir Alexander Duff Gordon whom she first met at Lansdowne House. Left much alone, as her mother was always hard at work translating, writing for various periodicals and nursing her husband, the two young people were thrown much together, and often walked out alone. One day Sir Alexander said to her: ‘Miss Austin, do you know people say we are going to be married?’ Annoyed at being talked of, and hurt at his brusque way of mentioning it, she was just going to give a sharp answer, when he added: ‘Shall we make it true?’ With characteristic straightforwardness she replied by the monosyllable, ‘Yes,’ and so they were engaged.^[4]

They got married on 16 May 1840 in Kensington Old Church with Lucie becoming Lady Duff-Gordon.^[5][6]

She and her husband Sir Alexander Cornewall Duff-Gordon, 3rd Baronet, of Halkin, had three children.

She was "compelled" to spend most of her life abroad owing to "her indifferent health"

Her death was registered with the British consulate at Cairo in Egypt. However, the death certificate issued by the consulate gives the actual place of her death as "on board Dahabia "Urania". The consular certificate also includes a column headed "Residence at the time of Death". Here Ralph Borg, the consular representative responsible, has entered "On the Nile".

Sources

1. ↑ Baptism: "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975"
   citing Digital film/folder number: 004426846; FHL microfilm: 1067177; Record number: 6548; Packet letter: A
   FamilySearch Record: NDZZ-VHM (accessed 11 January 2024)
   Lucie Austin baptism on 23 Dec 1837, daughter of John Austin & Sarah, in Hastings, Sussex, England, United Kingdom.
2. ↑ Baptism: "East Sussex, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1920"
   East Sussex Record Office; Brighton, England; Sussex Parish Registers; Reference Number: PAR 367/1/2/2
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry uk Record 62125 #3307450 (accessed 11 January 2024)
   Lucie Austin baptism on 23 Dec 1837, child of John Austin & Sarah Austin, in Hastings St Clement, Sussex, England.
3. ↑ Recollections of a Happy Life Marianne North: 1894 New York, MacMillan & Co; Vol 1, p5-7
   Internet Archive (accessed 11 Jan 2024)
4. ↑ Lady Duff Gordon's Letters from Egypt: "Revised edition with memoir by her daughter Janet Ross, 2nd Impression - London: R Brimley Johnson 1902"
   Project Gutenbeerg (accessed 11 Jan 2024)
5. ↑ Marriage Registration: "England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837-1915"
   Original data: England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes. London, England: General Register Office; Volume: 3; Page: 207
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry uk Record 8913 #921813 (accessed 11 January 2024)
   Lucy Austin marriage registered Apr-May-Jun 1840 in Kensington.
6. ↑ Wikipedia entry: Wikipedia contributors, "Alexander Cornewall Duff-Gordon"
   Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (accessed 11 January 2024)

• Wikipedia contributors, "Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lucie,_Lady_Duff-Gordon&oldid=705428214 (accessed July 17, 2016).
• "England and Wales Census, 1851," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SG1H-PYH : 29 July 2017), Lucy Duff Gordon in household of Alexander Duff Gordon, Weybridge, Surrey, England; citing Weybridge, Surrey, England, p. 2, from "1851 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO HO 107, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.
• Her Death Certificate. Death Certificate data (selection):

• Registration District : Within the district of the British Consulate at Cairo
• Year of Registration : 1849
• Nbr. In register : 97
• When died : 14. July 1869
• Where died : on board Dahabia “Urania”
• Name : Lady Lucie Duff Gordon
• Sex : Female
• Age : 48
• Occupation : Wife of Sir Alexander Duff Gordon, Bart.
• Residence at the time of death : On the Nile
• Informant : N. Araughty, Clerk to H[er].B[ritannic].M[ajesty’s]. Consulate at Cairo, Egypt
• When registered : 14. July 1859
• Registrar : Ralph Borg, cancellier Acting Consul

• Duffs - "Duffs of Crombie and Duff Gordons" in "The Book of the Duffs" by Henrietta and Alexander (Alister) Tayler, printed privately by T & A Constable in Edinburgh 1914, pages 414-425, here 424.

Published Output (selection)[1]

Travel (semi-autobiographical)

• Letters from Egypt
• Letters from the Cape
• The Frenchy in Algiers

Translations into the English Language

• Von Moltke: "Russian Campaign on the Danube
• Von Ranke:"Ferdinand and Maximillian"