Biography of Anna Spencer-Stanhope 1824-1901

In 1822 [her father] John Spencer-Stanhope (age 34) and [her mother] Elizabeth Wilhelmina Coke (age 26) were married. She the daughter of [her grandfather] Thomas Coke 1st Earl of Leicester (age 67) and [her grandmother] Jane Dutton.

On 28 Aug 1824 Anna Spencer-Stanhope was born to John Spencer-Stanhope (age 37) and Elizabeth Wilhelmina Coke (age 29).

William de Morgan and his Wife Chapter 5. Now it happened that, a short time before, the village schoolchildren had presented Anna Maria Stanhope (age 24), Lady Elizabeth's eldest daughter, with a little bonnet of white plaited straw which they had made for her, and thinking to please them she had decided to wear it on this occasion. The prim little headgear, shadowing her dark hair and brilliant eyes, proved singularly becoming, but her sisters had laughed at her for wearing it. 'You look a perfect Lucilla!' they declared, referring to Mrs. Hannah More's novel; ' All that is wanted is Cœlebs in search of a wife!'

William de Morgan and his Wife Chapter 5. But the course of the romance did not at first run smoothly; and three or four years passed before, at his third proposal [[her future husband] Percival Andrée Pickering (age 42) and Anna Spencer-Stanhope (age 28)], his devotion found its reward. After their marriage the young couple lived first in Green Street, in a little house with a bay window, now pulled down, which during a former generation had sheltered another romance, for there had resided the beautiful Miss Farren who became Lady Derby.

On 29 Mar 1853 Percival Andrée Pickering (age 43) and Anna Spencer-Stanhope (age 28) were married at All Saints Church, Cawthorne [Map].

On 30 Aug 1855 [her daughter] Evelyn de Morgan aka Mary Evelyn Pickering was born to [her husband] Percival Andrée Pickering (age 45) and Anna Spencer-Stanhope (age 31).

William de Morgan and his Wife Chapter 5. [her daughter] Mary Evelyn Pickering was the eldest daughter of [her husband] Percival Andree Pickering (age 45), Q.C., Recorder of Pontefract, Attorney General for the County Palatine and sometime Treasurer of the Inner Temple. He married in 1853 Anna Maria Spencer-Stanhope (age 31), who was herself the eldest daughter of [her father] John (age 68) and [her mother] Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope (age 60), of Cannon Hall, Yorkshire.

On 26 Aug 1865 [her daughter] Anna Maria Wilhelmina Pickering was born to [her husband] Percival Andrée Pickering (age 55) and Anna Spencer-Stanhope (age 40).

On 30 Oct 1873 [her mother] Elizabeth Wilhelmina Coke (age 78) died.

On 08 Nov 1873 [her father] John Spencer-Stanhope (age 86) died. [her brother] Walter Spencer-Stanhope (age 45) inherited Cannon Hall, South Yorkshire.

On 07 Aug 1876 [her husband] Percival Andrée Pickering (age 66) died.

On 05 Mar 1887 [her son-in-law] William Frend De Morgan (age 47) and [her daughter] Evelyn de Morgan aka Mary Evelyn Pickering (age 31) were married.

On 23 Dec 1901 Anna Spencer-Stanhope (age 77) died.

William de Morgan and his Wife Chapter 5. Mrs. Pickering, on her father's side, came of two families, the Spencers and the Stanhopes, who had been settled in Yorkshire since the Middle Ages — a race of fine old country Squires of a type now rapidly becoming extinct, men who, generation after generation, trod reputably, each in the footsteps of his predecessor, and proved themselves, as occasion dictated, shrewd magistrates, bold sportsmen, brave soldiers, stout topers, profound scholars or fine gentlemen. But they were apparently men of simple lives and of single aims, for the two houses which they inhabited show little trace of the inveterate dilettante or collector, nor of any keen lover of art having resided in them.