Catherine Tylney-Long (2 October 1789 – 12 September 1825) was a 19th-century British heiress, known as "The Wiltshire Heiress."

Life

She was the eldest daughter of

Sir James Tylney-Long, 7th Baronet Sir James Tylney-Long, 7th Baronet (1736 – 28 November 1794) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons for 32 years from 1762 to 1794. The eldest son of Sir Robert Long, 6th Baronet and his wife Emma Child, he succeeded his ...

, of Draycot,

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

. Her only brother James had inherited their father's fortune but died just short of his eleventh birthday in 1805, meaning that the vast estates (see list at Draycot Cerne article) gathered by the 7th Baronet in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

, and

and financial investments in hand worth devolved to Catherine. These estates were said to bring in total annual rents of £40,000. She thus became known in fashionable London society as "The Wiltshire Heiress" and was believed to be the richest commoner in England.Genealogical descent from the Tylneys of Tylney Hall, Hants. from: Victoria County History, Hampshire, vol.4, pp.99-101, Tylney in Rotherwick parish. Her suitors included the Duke of Clarence, later

King William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded hi ...

(b. 1765) keen to pay off his great debts. She eventually chose William Wesley-Pole (b. 1788), who on 14 January 1812 assumed the additional surnames of Tylney-Long, changing his name by Royal Licence. The couple married on 14 March 1812, but his extravagance, arrogance and cruelty meant the marriage was an exceedingly unhappy one.Geraldine Roberts, ''The Angel and the Cad'' (Macmillan: London, 2015) William gained an appointment as Gentleman Usher to

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

in 1822 (rendering him immune to arrest for debt) and left Britain to escape his creditors around 1823. Catherine implied in a letter to her sisters that her husband had given her a venereal disease. Whilst on the continent he began a relationship with Helena Paterson Bligh (d. 7 April 1869), the wife of Captain Thomas Bligh of the Coldstream Guards, abandoning Catherine entirely. She died at age 35 in Richmond, Surrey, leaving their children, William, James and Victoria, in the care of her two unmarried sisters, Dorothy and Emma. She had just received a letter from William, whose contents apparently caused her to have some form of seizure. William had only had a life interest in Catherine's property, although he was responsible for the demolition of

Wanstead House Wanstead House was a mansion built to replace the earlier Wanstead Hall. It was commissioned in 1715, completed in 1722 and demolished in 1825. Its gardens now form the municipal Wanstead Park in the London Borough of Redbridge. History Construct ...

in 1825 to pay off some of his debts and also unsuccessfully tried to gain custody of their eldest child

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

, on whom Catherine's fortune had devolved.

References

External links

*http://www.geraldineroberts.com/tag/catherine-tylney-long/ *http://www.wansteadpark.org.uk/hist/the-owners-of-wanstead-park-part-10-1784-1825/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Tylney-Long, Catherine 1789 births 1825 deaths 18th-century English people 19th-century English people 18th-century British women 19th-century British women

Catherine Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria. In the early Christ ...

Women of the Regency era Catherine Tylney-Long