Mrs Lydia Waetzig

Born Lydia Greatorex in Derby in 1822, in 1857 she married Gottlob Alfred Waetzig, a cook in the royal household.

According to the website of the Royal Collection Trust, she became a dresser to Queen Victoria in 1842. A pencilled inscription on the album page reads: ‘Mrs Wertzig [sic] formerly one of the Queen’s wardrobe maids and previously to that, Miss C. L. Leacroft’s nurse / Lydia Greatorex.’

She appears on the 1851 census, a ‘Wardrobe Maid’ living at Buckingham Palace. In 1871 she was living at 50 Gloucester Street in Pimlico.

She died, aged 66, on 2 September 1887 at 4 Durnford Villas, Merton Road, Wandsworth. She was buried in Brompton Cemetery.

Photographed by George and Rebecca Lavis of 135 Regent Street, London.