Lady holland biography

Elizabeth Vassall, the future Lady Holland, was born in March 1771, the only child of Richard Vassall, a proprietor of wealthy estates in Jamaica, and of his wife Mary, daughter of Thomas Clarke, a retired British Army officer who had settled on a farm in the neighbourhood of New York.

Vassall forebears had emigrated to America in the seventeenth century, but at the time of Elizabeth’s birth her parents were living mainly in England. When Richard Vassall died in 1795 his considerable fortune passed to his daughter, as she recorded in her Journal at the time:

‘I lost my poor father; a nobler, better man he has not left behind him. Towards me he was always fond and affectionate. His only failings arose from an excess of goodness. He was weak in character, as he idolised my mother and was completely subjected to her dominion. His death puts me in possession of great wealth, upwards of £10,000 per annum.’

English political hostess

Elizabeth Vassall Fox, Baroness Holland (1771 – London, November 1845) was an English political hostess and the wife of Whig politician Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland. With her husband, and after his death, she hosted political and literary gatherings at their home, Holland House.

Biography

Elizabeth Vassall was born in 1771 in London, the only child and heiress of Richard Vassall, a planter in Jamaica, and Mary Clarke of New York. She was the granddaughter of Florentius Vassall, a wealthy planter and slave-owner, in Jamaica whose gods will was dated 1777.^[1][2] She was also the first cousin of New York poet, scholar and real estate developer Clement Clarke Moore and second cousin of Theodosia Burr Alston, daughter of förnamn Burr.^[3]

First marriage

Vassall married Sir Godfrey Webster, 4th baronett in 1786. He was more than 20 years older than she was.^[2]