Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos (23 April 1670 – 16 July 1735) was an English historian, travel writer and artist. She spent more than a quarter-century overseeing the restoration of the gardens and rebuilding of the family mansion at

Wollaton Hall Wollaton Hall is an Elizabethan country house of the 1580s standing on a small but prominent hill in Wollaton Park, Nottingham, England. The house is now Nottingham Natural History Museum, with Nottingham Industrial Museum in the outbuildings ...

, now in Nottingham.

Biography

She was the daughter of Francis Willoughby of

Wollaton Wollaton is a suburb and former parish in the western part of Nottingham, England. Wollaton has two Wards in the City of Nottingham (''Wollaton East and Lenton Abbey'' and ''Wollaton West'') with a total population as at the 2011 census of 24,69 ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

, a Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

and writer on natural history, and his wife Emma, the daughter of Sir Henry Barnard of

Bridgnorth Bridgnorth is a town in Shropshire, England. The River Severn splits it into High Town and Low Town, the upper town on the right bank and the lower on the left bank of the River Severn. The population at the 2011 Census was 12,079. History B ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

and London. When her 19-year-old brother Francis disagreed with his stepfather's handling of his finances, Cassandra accompanied him in 1687 to the Willoughby family's earlier seat, Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire: "This proposall f her brother'sI was much delighted with, thinking it would be no small pleasure for me to be Mrs of Wollaton, and to doe whatever I had a mind to." She then oversaw restoration of the gardens and rebuilding of the house over a quarter of a century. In 1713, at the age of 43, Cassandra married her rich cousin, James Brydges FRS, at Chelsea College Chapel as his second wife. Brydges' social standing rose the following year when he inherited a barony and baronetcy on the death of his father, 8th Baron Chandos of Sudeley. He was soon created

Earl of Carnarvon Earl of Carnarvon is a title that has been created three times in British history. The current holder is George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon. The town and county in Wales to which the title refers are historically spelled ''Caernarfon,'' hav ...

and then in 1719 became

Duke of Chandos The Dukedom of Chandos is a title that has been created twice in the Peerage of England. First created as a barony by Edward III in 1337, its second creation in 1554 was due to the Brydges family's service to Mary I during Wyatt's rebellion, wh ...

and Cassandra his Duchess. Chandos-family-by-kneller-1713

The

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...

has a portrait of Cassandra and her husband by Sir

Godfrey Kneller Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet (born Gottfried Kniller; 8 August 1646 – 19 October 1723), was the leading portrait painter in England during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and was court painter to Kingdom of England, English and Br ...

dated 1713. It also features the two sons of Brydges by his first wife. Cassandra died childless at the age of 65 and was buried in the

Chandos Mausoleum The Chandos Mausoleum is an early 18th-century English Baroque building by James Gibbs in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. The mausoleum is attached to the north side of the church of St Lawrence Whitchurch in the London Borough of Ha ...

St Lawrence's Church, Whitchurch St. Lawrence, Whitchurch, is a Church of England parish church in Little Stanmore in the London Borough of Harrow, England. The building is Grade I listed. It retains a stone tower dating from ca. 1360, but the main body of the building was constr ...

Little Stanmore Little Stanmore was an ancient parish of Middlesex which is today the residential area of Canons Park in the London Borough of Harrow, England. Toponymy The name 'Stanmore' means "pond made of stone". Little Stanmore was named to distinguish i ...

, near the ducal seat of

Cannons A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during ...

. Both the mother and sister of

Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...

were named after Cassandra, to mark their link with a ducal family. Jane's mother was the granddaughter of the first Cassandra's sister-in-law, Mary Brydges.

Writings

Before she married, Cassandra Willoughby compiled a history of her father's family entitled ''The Continuation of the History of the Willoughby Family'', to be found in the Manuscripts Department at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

Library. Some of her correspondence from before and after her marriage is preserved at the

Shakespeare Birthplace Trust The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (SBT) is an independent registered educational charity based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, that came into existence in 1847 following the purchase of William Shakespeare's birthplace for preserva ...

Record Office, at the

North London Collegiate School North London Collegiate School (NLCS) is an independent school with a day school for girls in England. Founded in Camden Town, it is now located in Edgware, in the London Borough of Harrow. Associate schools are located in South Korea, Jeju I ...

Correspondence holdings
/ref> and the

Huntington Library and Art Gallery The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Ma ...

San Marino, California San Marino is a residential city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It was incorporated on April 25, 1913. At the 2010 census the population was 13,147. The city is one of the wealthiest places in the nation in terms of househol ...

. In addition, she left some travel writings and genealogies.

Notes

External links

Canons entry from The DiCamillo Companion to British & Irish Country Houses

References

*George E. Cokayne and Vicary Gibbs, ''The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom: Extant, Extinct, or Dormant''. Gloucester: A Sutton, 1987 *Cassandra Willoughby Brydges Chandos and

Rosemary O'Day Rosemary O'Day (born 29 May 1945) is professor emeritus of history at the Open University. She was co-director of the Charles Booth Centre and is currently a consultant to the Charles Booth Archive Online project at the University of London. Early ...

, ''Cassandra Brydges, Duchess of Chandos, 1670–1735: Life and Letters''. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2007 *Cassandra Willoughby Chandos, ''The Continuation of the History of the Willoughby Family: Being Vol. 2 of the Manuscript''. Ed., A. C. Wood. Eton, Windsor, England, 1958 *Joan Johnson, ''Excellent Cassandra: The Life and Times of the Duchess of Chandos''. Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, Gloucester, England, 1981 *Susan Jenkins, ''Portrait of a Patron: The Patronage and Collecting of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos (1674–1744)''. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007
googlebooks
Retrieved November 9, 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Willoughby, Cassandra Chandos 18th-century English historians 18th-century British women writers 1670 births 1735 deaths People from Stanmore Burials at the Chandos Mausoleum People from Wollaton British women historians