Mary and Lucy Egerton

A carte-de-visite portrait of two girls identified verso as 'Mary and Lucy Egerton'.

These are probably Mary Laura Egerton and Lucy Constance Egerton, daughters of the Reverend Thomas Egerton (1809-1847) and his wife Charlotte Catherine née Milner. Their maternal grandfather was Sir William Mordaunt Sturt Milner, 4th Baronet.

The girls appear on the 1851 census living with their widowed mother, their sister Georgina and their brother Arthur at Clifford-cum-Boston in Yorkshire. At the time of the census Mary was 5 and Lucy was 4. Both girls were born in Shrewsbury.

On 8 May 1870 Lucy married the Honourable Edward Stanhope, second son of Philip Henry Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope. Her husband was the MP for Mid-Lincolnshire between 1874 and 1885 and for Horncastle between 1885 and 1893. He was also at different points in his political career Secretary of State for the Colonies and Secretary of State for War. Lucy died in Lincolnshire in 1907, aged 60.

Mary never married. She appears on the 1911 census living with her elder sister Georgina and their cousin Rosamund Strickland Constable at Terrington in Yorkshire. The household included 11 servants, among them three lady's maids, a footman, a groom and a chauffeur. Mary died there in 1913, aged 67.

Photographed by William Stonehouse of Whitby in Yorkshire.