(Amélie) Julie Charlotte (née Castelnau), Lady Wallace

Nina Murden

28 July 2020, 07:45

I am afraid, that this will not necessarily be of use for your portrait information, but I am researching my families history and found this photo with great interest. The story is one that has come down the generations in my family, and I would like to tell you about it, for this french lady , Lady Wallace, changed the entire course of my great grandmother's life by her fateful actions one day in a street behind Selfridges. The story is that, my grandmother, Eliza Huckell, a young girl, whose father had died of TB, along with several of her 9 siblings, and whose mother then lived in poverty, was of course out at work, Ido not know what age she was, possibly 14 years old, and was scrubbing the doorstep of a customer's house when a very grand carriage stopped and this Lady who apparently only spoke French, using her footman to interpret, got out and offered my grandmother a job in her fine house. This utterly changed my grandmother's life, her life's chances, and hence transformed all life and events that were to follow. She was a kitchen assistant at first, then became cook and possibly housekeeper (we are not sure about that), and worked in Manchester House , where I believe she may have met her husband Elijah Landymore. She was always cheerful, she sang a lot, and counted herself extremely fortunate. She was highly skilled with her cuisine, went on to work in service down in Surrey, had two children, one of whom was my grandmother. She even managed towards the end of her working life to escape servitude, by having saved up enough money to buy her own house. Something that astounded and annoyed her rather horrible employers at the time. Looking at the house and the fine collections there, I am in no doubt that the fine surroundings she had in her early days influenced her and my grandmother for they both appreciated collected fine furniture and ornament and had wonderful taste. Should the carriage not have seen Eliza and not have been spotted scrubbing that doorstep that day, and not taken a liking to her in some way, I wonder what would have become of her. I know that her own mother died in abject poverty and squalor. It is so interesting too, that Booth's call to alleviate the suffering of the urban poor was being talked about at this time. I wonder if this influenced this Lady in her actions? The story that we have been told is that this lady was very kind - and she certainly was to our grandmother, we have much to thank her for.