Conservative High Society in late Victorian Britain: The album of Miss Evelyn Peel, daughter of Sir Robert Peel, 1896-1899

Evelyn Emily Peel (c.1869-1960), second daughter of Sir Robert Peel, 3rd Bart (1822-1895), and Lady Emily Hay, daughter of the Marquess of Tweeddale, married the diplomat Sir (James William) Ronald Macleay (1870-1943) in 1901. Compiled in the years preceding her marriage, the album reflects Evelyn Peel's energetic and playful personality, and her position as a member of late-Victorian Conservative high society. (On her death, 'A Friend' wrote in The Times (27 August 1960) that she was 'admirably suited' to accompany her husband to 'the 12 capitals to which his diplomatic duties had taken them': 'Equally at home in French or English, her talent for languages extended to Chinese, and her knowledge and collections of stamps and porcelain were exceptional. In each post her wit, intelligence, and forthright charm endeared her to many. [...] Evelyn Macleay will long be remembered for her spirit of fun'.)The present collection comprises nearly three hundred photographs, with hundreds of autograph signatures, inscriptions, drawings and caricatures, silhouettes, bars of music and a few items of ephemera,. On 68pp. of a 27.5 x 38cm landscape album. In worn black morocco binding, all edges gilt, dentelles, with the word 'Evelyn' in brass wire inlaid on front board. Aged, and with the latter leaves of the album affected by damp.Locations include: Drayton Manor, Northamptonshire (now demolished, seat of her brother Sir Robert Peel, 4th Baronet); Yester House (family seat of her father-in-law the Marquess of Tweeddale); Hothfield Place, Ashford, Kent (now demolished, seat of Liberal politician Henry James Tufton, 1st Baron Hothfield). Also 46 Avenue Kleber, Geneva (home of her mother); Strathfield Saye, Berkshire (seat of the Duke of Wellington); Aldenham Abbey, Hertfordshire; The Priory, Old Windsor; Fulmer Place, Fulmer, Slough; Rostherne Manor, Knutsford; Normanby Park, Doncaster; Appleby Castle, Westmoreland; Compton Verney, Warwick; Saltoun Hall, Pencaitland; 'Buda-Pest' (including a full-page portrait of five individuals signed by the noted Hungarian photographer Leopold Strelisky), and dated 1896; 'Château de Coudrée'; Brussels; 2 Chesterfield Gardens, Mayfair.Members of the Peel, Tufton and Hay families are represented among the signatures, the others including the Prince of Wales's mistresses Alice Keppel (three signatures) and Agnes Keyser; the Unionist politician Edward Carson; 'Wellington' and his wife Evelyn, Duchess of Wellington; Arthur Wellesley; Lady Dorothy Nevill; Lousia Pierpont Morgan; C. P. Colnaghi; Ida Edmonstone; Olive Chetwynd; Humphry Sturt (later Baron Alington); Candida Louise Tweeddale; Maurice Egerton; Algernon Bourke; Reginald Hoare; C. Ward-Jackson; Alice Hothfield; Evelyn Fitzgerald; N. Curzon; Dorothy Sheffield; Lily Duncombe; Robert Grosvenor; Lucy S. Constable; Rosamond Guest; Ella Geraldine Fletcher; Leslie Balfour Melville; Henry Callander; 'Chesterfield'; 'Balfour of Burleigh'; Sophie Green-Thompson; Charles E. Russell; Richard Lawson; Richard A. D. Liebert; Hester Kennard; Charlotte Fleming; Rosie Hanbury Lennox; Violet Savile Lumley; G. de Saumarez Hamilton; Granville Alexander Henry Tomkinson; Blanche Radclyffe; Frank Lambert; Constance Sandford; John Hargreaves; Alwen Montgomerie; Henry H. Cavendish; Albert Goldschmidt; H. Talbot Watson; Alex Barton; Adolphus FitzGeorge; Rosamond Lupton; Arthur Davidson; John Ramsay Slade; Evelyn H. Pierrepont; Herbert Praed; George Monckton; Gervase Thorpe; Reggie S. Chaplin.Among the photographs are group portraits and portraits of individuals, children and pets; with other themes including bicycling (two photographs show a group of two gentlemen and two ladies on bicycles, in a line with their arms over one another's shoulders); sailing, horse riding and hunting, pastimes (billiards, tennis, men in cricket whites), landscapes, interiors. The photographs range from large views of the various country seats, to small cut-outs (for example one, 7cm high, of a lady shooting with a gentleman behind her).Loosely inserted is a playful pencil portrait of Peel's face on a holly leaf, on a 11.5 x 8 cm card, with the inscription: 'A Xmas Ap "peal" while the Xmas "Belles" are Peeling!' On reverse is a caricature of a parson's head, with the text: 'BEWARE of The Little Temptation that seizes one unawares" | Rev. - Russell's sermon. | 27 Dec: 1896. | at Hothfield'. This is not the only flirting pun on Evelyn Peel's name. One inscription, on the letterhead of White's club, refers to Evelyn Peel's 'bricht erotic hair', dubbing her 'The Belle o' Peel', summoned by 'A Peel o' Bells'. A second reads: 'Oh highly susceptible Humpty Verelst | By thy letters persistent thy secret thou tell'st | So - since from her no longer your views you conceal | Why not carry your cause to the "Court of a Peel".' And another: 'Of all the things, on this great earth, that lack a sense of feeling; and get no sympathy from man: - a Camp Bell when appealing!!' Among the other inscriptions are two bars of music ('Tho thou art far from me thy promise still') in the autograph of the composer Frank Lambert (1868-1925), with his signature dated 15 February 1898. Two inscriptions by the music-hall artiste Maurice Farkoa: one of four-lines in Greek, the other in French.Among the items laid down are: marriage notice (with signatures and photographs) of Gwendoline Peel and Victor von Müller, Holy Trinity Church, Geneva, 8 October 1896; a printed card, completed in manuscript for 'Yester | Covert Shooting' on 28, 29 and 30 November [1899].