Lady Florence Paget

Lady Florence Cecilia Paget was the daughter of Sir Henry Paget, 2nd Marquess of Anglesey, and Henrietta Maria née Bagot. Her surprise marriage to the Marquess of Hastings stunned society in 1864.

She was engaged to the popular sportsman and wealthy Lincolnshire squire Harry Chaplin when, only days before the wedding ceremony was due to take place, she took a carriage to Marshall and Snelgrove's on Oxford Street, supposedly to buy a few more items for her trousseau. In fact she walked straight through the store and out of the back entrance, where the Marquess of Hastings, Harry Chaplin's best friend, was waiting with marriage licence in hand. The two lovers drove straight to St George's in Hanover Square and were married immediately. Only the night before, the three protagonists in this triangle had shared a box at the opera.

Chaplin subsequently married a daughter of the Duke of the Sutherland. A notorious drinker and gambler, Hastings died a few years later, ruined - according to The Times - 'in health, in honour and in estate.' Two years later, on 9 June 1870, his widow married Sir George Chetwynd. She died on 3 February 1907 at the age of 64.

Photographed by Camille Silvy on 26 October 1860.