Jane Mary Clairmont (1798 - 1879)

Born 27 Apr 1798 in Bristol, England

Ancestors

Died 19 Mar 1879 at age 80 in Florence, Italy

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Biography

Jane/Clara then Claire was the illegitimate daughter of the married John Lethbridge and his mistress Mary Jane Vial.^[1]

Siblings:

1. Charles Gaulis; Her mother Mary Jane represented herself as the widow of a Swiss merchant named Charles Gaulis and her children Charles and Claire as his children, but Mary Jane was never legally married to Gaulis, Charles Abram Marc Gaulis, "a merchant and member of a prominent Swiss family, whom she met in Cadiz was the father of her son Charles. Charles Gaulis died over a year before Claire's birth. ^[1]

Claire seems to have been raised to believe Gaulis was her biological father (she referred to Switzerland as "the land of my ancestors" in a letter to her lover Lord Byron, for example). It was proven in 2010 that her mother's lover Sir John Lethbridge was Claire's father (Somerset Archive and Record Service. Dodson and Pulman, Solicitors Box 17: Lethbridge family legal papers, DD\DP/17/11 1797-1814 Corresp. concerning Mary Jane Vial.) ^[2]

Mary Jane married the writer and philosopher William Godwin in 1801. Godwin brought his daughter, later Mary Shelley, and his stepdaughter Fanny Imlay. Both were the daughters of Mary Wollstonecraft, who had died four years before.

The new couple Mary Jane and William Godwin soon became the parents of a son, which completed the family of seven.

During the summer of 1814, the sixteen year old Jane started to rebel with sister Mary and later a story titled The Idiot, which has since been lost was written by her. Shortly after, Clairmont introduced her step sister Mary and Percy Shelley to Lord Byron, it was then she also met Edward John Trelawny, who was to play a major role in the short remaining lives of both poets. Edward had affection for Claire as well and later proposed after the death of Shelly. ^[1]

It was during 1817-1818 that Jane changed her name, first to "Clara" and finally to the more romantic-sounding "Claire". She entered into an affair with Lord Byron before he left England in 1816 to live abroad. Clairmont took up residence in Bath and in January 1817 she gave birth to a daughter, Alba, whose name was eventually changed to Allegra.^[1]

Throughout the pregnancy, Clairmont had written long letters to Byron, pleading for his attention and a promise to care for her and the baby, sometimes making fun of his friends, reminding him how much he had enjoyed making love to her, and sometimes threatening suicide. Byron, who by this time hated her, ignored the letters.

The following year, Clairmont and the Shelley's left England and journeyed once more to Byron, who now resided in Italy. Clairmont felt that the future Byron could provide for their daughter would be greater than any she herself would be able to grant the child and therefore, wished to deliver Allegra into his care. Upon arriving in Italy, Clairmont was again refused by Byron. He arranged to have Allegra delivered to his house in Venice and agreed to raise the child on the condition that Clairmont keep her distance from him. Clairmont reluctantly gave Allegra over to Byron.^[1]

It has occasionally been suggested that Clairmont was also the mother of a daughter fathered by Percy Shelley. The possibility goes back to the accusation by Shelley's servants, Elise and Paolo Foggi, that Clairmont gave birth to Shelley's baby during a stay in Naples, where on 27 February 1819, Shelley registered a baby named Elena Adelaide Shelley as having been born on 27 December 1818. The registrar recorded her as the daughter of Percy Shelley and "Maria" or "Marina Padurin" (possibly an Italian mispronunciation of "Mary Godwin"), and she was baptized the same day as the lawfully begotten child of Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin. It is, however, almost impossible that Mary Shelley was the mother, and this has given rise to several theories, including that the child was indeed Clairmont's. Clairmont herself had ascended Mount Vesuvius, carried on a palanquin, on 16 December 1818, only nine days before the date given for the birth of Elena. It may be significant, however, that Clairmont was taken ill at about the same time – according to Mary Shelley's journal she was ill on 27 December – and that her journal of June 1818 to early March 1819 has been lost. In a letter to Isabella Hoppner of 10 August 1821, Mary Shelley, however, stated emphatically that "Claire had no child"^[1]

The infant Elena was placed with foster parents and later died on 10 June 1820. Byron believed the rumours about Elena and used them as one more reason not to let Clairmont influence Allegra. Clairmont was granted only a few brief visits with Allegra after surrendering her to Byron. When Byron arranged to place Allegra in a Capuchin convent in Bagnacavallo, Italy, Clairmont was outraged. In 1821, she wrote Byron a letter accusing him of breaking his promise that their daughter would never be apart from one of her parents. By March 1822, it had been two years since she had seen her daughter. She plotted to kidnap Allegra from the convent and asked Shelley to forge a letter of permission from Byron. Shelley refused her request. Byron's seemingly callous treatment of the child was further vilified when Allegra died there at the age of five, from a fever some scholars identify as typhus and others speculate was a malarial-type fever. Clairmont held Byron entirely responsible for the loss of their daughter and hated him for the rest of her life. Shelley's death followed only two months later.^[1]

After Shelley's death in 1822, Edward Trelawny sent Claire love letters from Florence pleading with her to marry him, but she was not interested. Still, she remained in contact with him the rest of her long life.^[1]

Clairmont returned to England in 1836, the year William Godwin died, where she worked as a music teacher. She cared for her mother when she was dying. In 1841, after Mary Jane Godwin's death, Clairmont moved to Pisa, where she lived with Margaret King (officially Lady Margaret Mount Cashell but known as Mrs Mason), an old pupil of Mary Wollstonecraft. She lived in Paris for a time in the 1840s. Percy Shelley had left her £12,000 in his will, which she finally received in 1844. She carried on a sometimes turbulent, bitter correspondence with her stepsister, until Mary died in 1851.^[1] Clairmont converted to Catholicism, despite having hated the religion earlier in her life. She moved to Florence in 1870 and lived there in an expatriate colony with her niece, Paulina. She was also close to Paulina's brother Wilhelm Gaulis Clairmont, the only other surviving child of her brother Charles. She considered making her home with him and financially supported some of his endeavours, for example with £500 towards the purchase of a farm.^[1]

Claire Clairmont outlived all the members of Percy Shelley's circle except Edward Trelawny and Jane Williams.^[1]

Claire passed away in Florence on 19 March 1879, at the age of 80^[1]and was interred in the Cimitero Monumentale Della Misericordia Antella, Antella, Città Metropolitana di Firenze, Toscana, Italy^[3]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11} Claire Clairmont at Wikipedia
2. ↑ Sir John Lethbridge Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_John_Lethbridge,_1st_Baronet)
3. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13822658/claire-clairmont: accessed 22 January 2023), memorial page for Claire Clairmont (27 Apr 1798–19 Mar 1879), Find a Grave Memorial ID 13822658, citing Cimitero Monumentale Della Misericordia Antella, Antella, Città Metropolitana di Firenze, Toscana, Italy; Maintained by Mark McManus (contributor 46593855).