sdasd
DIDO ELIZABETH BELLE
A BLACK GIRL AT KENWOOD
An account of a protegée of the 1st Lord Mansfield by Gene Adams
It is fascinating but little known that during the later eighteenth century Kenwood was the home, for perhaps the first 30 years of her life, of a young black girl called Dido Elizabeth Belle (or Lindsay), born c 1763. She was a member of the family and household of William Murray,
1st Earl of Mansfield (1705—93) and
Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench.
According to family tradition a painting attributed to Zoffany, now at Scone Palace the Scottish seat of the Earls of Mansfield, shows Dido with her half-cousin Lady
Elizabeth Murray (c 1763—1823) walking in the grounds of Kenwood. Dido was a “mulatto” and the natural daughter of Sir
John Lindsay (1737—88), a captain in the
Royal Navy and later Rear Admiral of the
Red. Lady Elizabeth’s father was David,
7th Viscount Stormont; both he and Sir
John Lindsay were nephews of Lord
Mansfield. Dido was known as Elizabeth to her father to judge from the mention of her in his will; at Kenwood she may have been called Dido after the famous African queen. There is no information on the origin of Belle; perhaps this was the name her mother was known by.
From the painting of the two girls, and from glimpses provided by contemporary letters and diaries, we can build an idea of Kenwood as a country home some distance from To wn along rough roads with a small working farm surrounded by hayfields, and of the family that lived there and of the friends who visited Lord
Mansfield’s “sweet box at Caen Wood”, to quote the description by Ignatius
Sancho, one of several liberated slaves who made names for themselves in 18th century London. Lousia, Lady Stormont, a visiting niece, wrote a letter from “Ken
Wood, which Lord S. says is the right way of spelling it” in the spring of 1776, in which she remarked:
You did not see enough of Lord Mansfield to know how diverting he is, he says
A BLACK GIRL AT KENWOOD
An account of a protegée of the 1st Lord Mansfield by Gene Adams
It is fascinating but little known that during the later eighteenth century Kenwood was the home, for perhaps the first 30 years of her life, of a young black girl called Dido Elizabeth Belle (or Lindsay), born c 1763. She was a member of the family and household of William Murray,
1st Earl of Mansfield (1705—93) and
Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench.
According to family tradition a painting attributed to Zoffany, now at Scone Palace the Scottish seat of the Earls of Mansfield, shows Dido with her half-cousin Lady
Elizabeth Murray (c 1763—1823) walking in the grounds of Kenwood. Dido was a “mulatto” and the natural daughter of Sir
John Lindsay (1737—88), a captain in the
Royal Navy and later Rear Admiral of the
Red. Lady Elizabeth’s father was David,
7th Viscount Stormont; both he and Sir
John Lindsay were nephews of Lord
Mansfield. Dido was known as Elizabeth to her father to judge from the mention of her in his will; at Kenwood she may have been called Dido after the famous African queen. There is no information on the origin of Belle; perhaps this was the name her mother was known by.
From the painting of the two girls, and from glimpses provided by contemporary letters and diaries, we can build an idea of Kenwood as a country home some distance from To wn along rough roads with a small working farm surrounded by hayfields, and of the family that lived there and of the friends who visited Lord
Mansfield’s “sweet box at Caen Wood”, to quote the description by Ignatius
Sancho, one of several liberated slaves who made names for themselves in 18th century London. Lousia, Lady Stormont, a visiting niece, wrote a letter from “Ken
Wood, which Lord S. says is the right way of spelling it” in the spring of 1776, in which she remarked:
You did not see enough of Lord Mansfield to know how diverting he is, he says