Diana de Vere Beauclerk, Lady Huddleston (10 December 1842 – 1 April 1905) was an English writer. She wrote ''Summer and Winter in Norway'' (1868) and ''True Love'' (1869) under the name Lady Di Beauclerk. Advertisement_from_1869_Pall_Mall_Gazette_for_True_Love_by_Diane_de_Vere_Beauclerk

Advertisement_from_1869_Pall_Mall_Gazette_for_True_Love_by_Diane_de_Vere_Beauclerk

Life

Lady Diana de Vere Beauclerk was born on 10 December 1842 in London, the daughter of

William Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, 9th Duke of St Albans (24 March 1801 – 27 May 1849) was an English aristocrat and cricketer. Early life William Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk was born on 24 March 1801. He was the son of William Beauclerk, 8th D ...

and Elizabeth Catherine Gubbins. In 1863, Diana Beauclerk was one of

Queen Alexandra Alexandra of Denmark (Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia; 1 December 1844 – 20 November 1925) was List of British royal consorts, Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 22 January 1901 t ...

's eight bridesmaids. She married Sir

John Walter Huddleston Sir John Walter Huddleston (8 September 1815 – 5 December 1890) was an English judge, formerly a criminal lawyer who had established an eminent reputation in various '' causes célèbres''. As a Baron of the Exchequer of Pleas, he was styled ...

in 1872. The night before the wedding ceremony, Bishop

Samuel Wilberforce Samuel Wilberforce, FRS (7 September 1805 – 19 July 1873) was an English bishop in the Church of England, and the third son of William Wilberforce. Known as "Soapy Sam", Wilberforce was one of the greatest public speakers of his day.Natural Hi ...

, who would conduct the service, wrote in his diary: "To All Saints',

Knightsbridge Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End of London, West End. ...

, to marry Lady Di." From then on she used the name Lady Diana Huddleston, but she was familiarly known as "The Beautiful Lady Di" or "Lady Di". Lady Diana was well known in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

and, together with her mother, worked for Huddleston in his successful campaign there in the Parliamentary election of 1874. She frequently sat on the bench alongside Huddleston during trials, as she had done during the infamous case of ''

Whistler v. Ruskin James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

''. Sir John Walter Huddleston died on 5 September 1890, with an expressed wish that he be buried with his wife.

She never recovered from the loss of her husband in 1890, and everywhere she went the ashes of the Baron, who was cremated at
Woking Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in northwest Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'' and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settlement o ...
, accompanied her. The small bronze
urn An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape or ...
containing them always rested on a table beside her bed.

Lady Diana Huddleston died on 1 April 1905 in London. She was cremated and her ashes were buried alongside those of her husband. They had no children and she bequeathed a large sum of money to her servants.

Books

Lady Di Beauclerk was the author of ''Summer and Winter in Norway'' (1868) and ''True Love'' (1869). She, her mother, and their maid Teresina left behind all luxuries to travel through Norway in the summer and winter of 1867. The following year her travelogue ''Summer and Winter in Norway'' was published. It was reviewed favourably by ''

The Pall Mall Gazette ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed int ...

'', which characterized it as a straightforward narrative which did not attempt to function as a guidebook. The ''

Morning Post ''The Morning Post'' was a conservative daily newspaper published in London from 1772 to 1937, when it was acquired by ''The Daily Telegraph''. History The paper was founded by John Bell. According to historian Robert Darnton, ''The Morning Po ...

'' praised ''True Love'' humour and characters, opining that "Lady Di Beauclerk, with her acute power of perception and no less sharp method of delineation, may, if it so please her, become one of the most powerful and popular writers of the time." However, the '' Saturday Review'' called the novel "commonplace and dull", saying "the person who can write a pleasant book of travels is not always able to follow suit with a novel, and the ''kudos'' got by the one venture is not unfrequently lost in the other."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beauclerk, Diana de Vere 1842 births 1905 deaths Victorian women writers Victorian writers Writers from London British travel writers British women travel writers British women novelists Daughters of English dukes Wives of knights 19th-century British novelists