Etheldred Cust

Etheldred Anne Cust ( 22 July 1771 to 7 December 1788)

The daughter of Brownlow Cust, the 1st Baron Brownlow from 1776 and his first wife Jocosa Drury. Doodlings inside her book made as an 11-year-old. Select psalms for the use of Portman-Chapel, near Portman-Square. Published [London] : printed by John Rivington, Jun. Clerkenwell; and may be had of the clerk of the Chapel MDCCLXXX. [1780].

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Transcription

Ethelred an Cust

Ethelred Anne Cust

her book Feb 11th 1783

Tuesday night a great deal of company

Etheldred

Tomorrow 10 see is dance my

Pappa & Mamma come to town

to morrow I have been at school

week to Day went to Lady Bankes

Sunday & sha[ll] go to Bond St

mand St next sunday

The book shows woodworm (larvae) burrowing in the bottom left corner and splitting of the board.

Notes

Etheldred's mother, Jocosa Katerina Drury ( 1748-1772) died when she was 6-months old.
Pappa, Brownlow Cust, 1st Baron Brownlow
Mamma, step-mother, Frances Bankes (1756-1847), who married the 1st Baron in 1775 as his 2nd wife.
Lady Bankes (1728-1806), maternal grandmother.
Bond St C18 a popular place for the upper-class residents of Mayfair to socialise & shop. Tax records for 1775 show 61 Bond Street as Brownlow Cust's London address. Now New Bond Street.

My thanks to Eileen Davies for the photograph

The 17th-century property developer Sir Thomas Bond, gave his name to this thoroughfare. He was selected by Ian Fleming as the real-life ancestor of the fictional James Bond. Sir Thomas’s family motto, Orbis non sufficit, translates to The world is not enough, the title of the 19th James Bond movie.

Gillray's portrayal of Bond Street in 1796, with a little girl and her Mamma in the foreground. Behind are the so-called Bond Street Loungers. Dandified, wealthy young men whose business it was to harass shoppers, block sidewalks, leer at women and generally make a nuisance of themselves. Perhaps why the Brownlows had moved by 1802 to Hill Street.

Alas, there is no known image of Etheldred.

Etheldred, named after her paternal grandmother Etheldred Payne, Lady Cust (1720-1775).

Farewell most dear Lamented Daughter

At the time of the memorial, left, the only child of the 1st Baron Brownlow and his first wife Jocosa Drury.

Aged 11, when she wrote in the book. She also left a sampler, below, for us to remember her by,

Who truly seeking God, in Him alone rests - And who truly fears God, fears nothing else.

Memorial broach containing hair, on the reverse 'Francis Cust died 1786 ( step-sister, see below) and Etheldred Anne Cust died 1788'.

Etheldred's drawing of Socrates, dated the 9th December 1784.

Æthelthryth (or Æðelþryð; about 636–679) is the name for the Anglo-Saxon saint known, particularly in a religious context, as Etheldreda or Audrey. She was an East Anglian princess, a Fenland and Northumbrian queen and Abbess of Ely.

Frances Cust, step-sister

Inscribed on back of frame: Miss Frances Cust, aged 2 3/4. ; Drawn By Mrs Angelica Kauffmann, June 1779, and a receipt is pasted below which reads, Received June 8, 1779, from Lady Brownlow, the sum of 6 guineas [£1,300], being the first half payment for an oval portrait in crayons by me, Angelica Kauffman. Frances (1776-1785) died aged 9 years. Her younger brother became the 1st Earl Brownlow.

Portrait owned by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Image Wikigallery

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