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Elizabeth Biddulph, Baroness Biddulph

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Lady Elizabeth Philippa Biddulph (15 November 1834 – January 1916) was an English humanitarian and temperance leader.

Early life

Lady Elizabeth (nickname, "Lady Libbet")[1] Philippa Yorke was born in England, 15 November 1834. She was a daughter and eldest child of the Charles Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke,[2] and Susan, sixth daughter of Thomas Liddell, 1st Baron Ravensworth.[3] Until her marriage, she lived at Wimpole Hall and was her father's constant companion, sharing in his interests, political and other, including his love of the sea.[1] Her relationships constituted a large social circle, including her mother and her mother's sisters, Lady Normanby, Lady Barrington, and Lady Bloomfield.[1]

Career

Although brought up in Tory surroundings, Lady Elizabeth was by nature liberal and broadminded. Her work in Bethnal Green in the early 1870s, after she had become a widow and lived mainly in London, gave her opportunity to see the life and temptations of the poor. Of these, she was always of the opinion that alcohol consumption was the worst.[1] Lady Elizabeth was led to join a temperance society in Ledbury through the unwillingness of her physician, the eminent Sir Andrew Clark, to prescribe alcoholic stimulants for her during an attack of illness. His prescription of total abstinence resulted in such positive benefit that she took the total-abstinence pledge and put on the blue ribbon, becoming an active worker in the cause of temperance reform. She was soon afterward elected president of the Ledbury Temperance Union. She also united with the Rechabites and the Good Templars. During 1896-98, she was president of the Women's Total Abstinence Union.[2]

Besides her activities in the temperance cause, Lady Elizabeth devoted much of her time to the relief of the poor, and the promotion of various movements for the better care of the sick and dependent classes.[2] She was a patron of the Ledbury Cottage Hospital.[3]

In 1910, she published a biography of her father, Charles Philip Yorke, fourth Earl of Hardwicke : a memoir by his daughter, the Lady Biddulph of Ledbury.[4]

Lady Elizabeth acted as Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria,[3] and was a member of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert.[2]

Personal life

She first married Henry John Adeane, M.P., of Babraham Hall, Cambridgeshire,[3] who died in 1870.[2] Their children included a son, Charles Robert Whorwood Adeane.[3]

In 1877, she married Michael Biddulph, afterward Baron Biddulph of Ledbury, Herefordshire, a member of the banking firm of Cocks, Biddulph, and Co., London. Mr. Biddulph was raised to the peerage in 1903.[2] Of this marriage, there were no children.[3]

She died at her London home in January 1916.[2] Burial was at the churchyard of Babraham Hall.[1]

Selected works

  • Charles Philip Yorke, fourth Earl of Hardwicke : a memoir by his daughter, the Lady Biddulph of Ledbury, 1910 Text

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "THE LATE LADY BIDDULPH". Cambridge Independent Press. 21 January 1916. p. 6. Retrieved 1 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Cherrington, Ernest Hurst (1925). Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem. Vol. 1. Westerville, Ohio: American Issue Publishing Company. p. 343. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "DEATH OF LADY BIDDULPH". The Gloucestershire Echo. 14 January 1916. p. 4. Retrieved 1 March 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "HARDWICKE". Quarterly Bulletin of the Brooklyn Public Library. The Library: 27. 1908. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
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