– A Windsor Resident?
Published in Windlesora 17 (1999)
© WLHG
Standing in Kings Road, the present YWCA premises occupies the site of a house that was, at the turn of the century, the home of one whose love life caused no small excitement forty years previously.
Lady Florence Paget, daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Anglesey, was a noted beauty of her day and known as the Pocket Venus. Many suitors eagerly vied for her hand, chief among them being two leading patrons of the turf, Harry Chaplin, a friend of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and Henry, 4th Marquess of Hastings.
Chaplin proposed in 1864 and was accepted; the wedding was fixed for August and other arrangements made. On 16th July, Lady Florence said that she needed a few items for her trousseau and made her way to Marshall and Snelgrove. Slipping out through a side door she got into a closed carriage and drove to the church of St George, Hanover Square where, just after midday, she and the Marquess of Hastings were married. Chaplin was naturally devastated and turned even more to racing as a cure for a brokenheart.
Rivalry, however, did not end at the altar; whenever Chaplin entered a horse in a race, Hastings did likewise, much to the distress of his wife who had, within a short time, discovered that her husband’s heavy gambling was leading him deeper into debt. Matters came to a head on Derby Day 1865: Chaplin had entered his colt Hermit and the Marquess bet heavily against it. Although ridden by a relatively inexperienced jockey, Hermit made his challenge in the final furlong and beat the favourite by a neck. Chaplin was victorious and Hastings lost a fortune.
By 1868 Lady Florence was a widow. The Marquess who, as The Complete Peerage puts it “had ruined himself on the turf“, died at the age if 26. Two years later she married again, this time to Sir George Chetwynd, a Warwickshire baronet. The marriage, which produced a son and a daughter, was not a happy one and eventually they parted, Lady Florence coming to live at Long Walk House.
Lady Florence died in 1907. The Times says that she died in Chelsea and was buried at Brookwood. The Complete Peerage, however, states that she died at Long Walk House and was buried in Warwickshire with her husband.
After her death, Long Walk House had a number of occupants until by 1947 it belonged to the YWCA. The house was demolished in the early 1960s and the present building was erected on the site. Curiously, directories of the period make no mention of Lady Florence. She is not named in the list of private residents nor does her name appear in the street directory.
Leslie Grout
Windsor Local History Group 