Barbauld became a regular visitor at “Maryon Hall” and wrote verses for the Carr children and took part in their family theatricals.25
It was Barbauld who introduced Thomas Carr to the radical journalist, political philosopher and novelist, William Godwin, husband of the pioneering feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft. Their daughter Mary married Percy Bysshe Shelley and was the author of Frankenstein.26 Another regular visitor at “Maryon Hall” was the lawyer and diarist, Henry Crabb Robinson, who considered Carr to be a clever and “very sensible man whose company I like.” Robinson later recalled dining with the Carrs when fellow guests were Wordsworth and the chemist, inventor and scientist, Sir Humphrey Davy and his wife.27
Joanna Baillie also introduced the Carrs to the Irish novelist and educationalist Maria Edgeworth. She was the daughter of Richard Lovell Edgeworth of County Longford, the inventor and educational theorist who was viewed wth suspicion in some circles as a religious heretic. Maria was one of an incredible number of twenty-two children. Maria was a very popular author in her time and was greatly influential in the development of the English novel. She is best remembered for Castle Rackrent, a novel which satirizes Anglo-Irish landlords and their overall mismanagement of their estates at a time when the English and Irish parliaments were working toward formalizing their union through the Acts of Union.
In 1819 Maria, together with her sisters Fanny and Honora, were invited to stay at “Maryon Hall.” Maria, who had not enjoyed a happy childhood due to her father’s neglect, envied what she saw and wrote home to her own mother:
Mrs Carr is the most kind hearted motherly creature I have seen since I came to England. How fortunate we were to come here just at the moment we did. We have a delightful airy bedchamber with cheerful bow window—large bed for Fanny and me—a room adjoining for Honora and a little dressing room—with a double and tiny anteroom that shuts out all noise. As Mrs Carr says I am sure these 3 rooms were intended from the Creation for the 3 Edgeworths they fit and suit them so exactly.
Mr Carr! Oh mother I almost envy these dear good girls the happiness of the affection they have for their father. If you could see them all from the eldest to the youngest running to the gate to meet him as he rides home on his white horse! He is one of the very happiest men I ever saw—of the happiest temper—working hard all day usefully and honourably and coming home every evening to such a happy cultivated united family. When he sits down to dinner in the midst of his children he says he throws aside every care for the remainder of the day and enjoys himself. He is passionately fond of drawing and music and one daughter draws admirably and another plays and sings admirably—and all their accomplishments are for him and for their own family. They are really happy people. Certainly Fanny has the advantage of seeing a greater variety of the insides of families of all ranks than could have been expected—even by my sanguine imagination.28
The daughter noted by Edgeworth for her artistic talent was Sarah Grace, the future wife of Stephen Lushington.29 Maria later wrote to Sarah:
Your drawings are beautiful—but they are infinitely more valuable to me than drawings however excellent could be as proof of your kind dispositions towards me,—shall I say at once, of your liking me. I assure, my dear Miss Carr, this liking is mutual, and whenever we come to England again we shall with great eagerness avail ourselves of Mr and Mrs Carr’s cordial invitation and endeavour to cultivate the society of a family who have shown ours so much attention, and whom we feel so many reasons for valuing.30
Strongly influenced by her father’s views, Maria corresponded with Sarah on matters of education, an area of common interest between the Carr and, later, the Lushington families. Maria invited Sarah and her fiancée to visit her brother Lovell’s school in Ireland and she later wrote to her, “Since you and Dr Lushington saw and approved of the beginning, much more has been effected, and the improvement, intellectual and moral, are really astonishing.”31 This interest in progressive education was pursued some years later when two of Sarah’s daughters were involved in an experimental school which was set up under the supervision of Lady Byron.
Enter Lady Byron
Annabella Millbanke, the future Lady Byron, had been on friendly terms with the Carr family from before they moved to Hampstead. Her family were also from Northumberland and knew the Carrs. In a letter to Sarah Carr written from Alnwick in August 1807, she referred to an excursion she had made with Sarah and her father. Annabella, like Maria Edgeworth also thought highly of Sarah’s artistic talent.
In January 1815, Annabella married George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron. Their time together as husband and wife was both short and stormy, and the marriage was doomed from the start due to Byron’s infidelity and debt. Barely eleven months after her marriage Annabella gave birth to a daughter, Augusta Ada (the future Lady Lovelace). In January 1816, concerned at her husband’s increasingly bad behavior, Lady Byron took her daughter to her parents in Leicestershire. She never returned to her husband. Later that month, Lady Byron’s mother sought advice on her daughter’s behalf from two distinguished lawyer friends. They advised her to consult a young rising star in the legal profession named Stephen Lushington.
Lady Byron considered taking refuge in the possibility that her husband was mad and had earlier consulted Dr. Matthew Baillie, brother of Joanna Baillie, concerning Lord Byron's mental state. Following an initial consultation with Lady Byron’s mother, Lushington agreed to take on what would prove to be his most celebrated case.32 In February of that year, Lushington had his first meeting with Lady Byron. Her suspicions of incest him Lushington to believe that reconciliation was impossible and, as a result, he urged her to immediately cease all communication with her husband. He advised her to bring the case to trial but she informed him that she wished for a private settlement. Thus began the process of their legal separation and, on October 12, 1816, Lady Byron wrote from Kirkby Mallory, her family home:
My zealous & disinterested friend Dr Lushington is here now on a visit of relaxation from his professional labours, and in the little conversation I have had with him about my prospects, he seems thoroughly convinced that Lord B will not return, and that such an event is only held out by his friends from prudential motives.33
In 1816, Lady Byron moved to Hampstead. She had met Joanna Baillie some four years earlier and often visited her and her sister in the village. She was also already a regular visitor at “Maryon Hall,” often staying there for several days. Lady Byron eventually took a furnished house in the village for herself and Augusta Ada.34 After moving to Hampstead, she wrote how Mrs Carr had “been particularly kind in supplying my wants as to the household” and, once settled in her new home, she began to reciprocate the generosity shown to her by holding dinner parties at which distinguished visitors would mix with her neighbors. It was probably at one of these functions that Sarah Carr and Stephen Lushington met for the first time.
The fresh air of rural Hampstead and walks in the open fields around her new home greatly benefitted her young daughter and soon Lady Byron was able to report “Ada grown very intelligent—singing—dancing—conversing. She may be made a good & happy person, I think, without great difficulty from her present amiable disposition”35 As Ada grew in years her mother enlisted the help of some close friends to help mentor and guide the young girl who was proving a little too unruly at times. According to a later close confidant of Ada, these three ladies were constantly with Lady Byron who was entirely led by them. They were accused of interfering in the most unjustifiable manner between mother and daughter. Ada called them the three Furies after the mythological Greek deities. They were Selina Doyle (an old childhood friend from Yorkshire), Mary Montgomery of Blessingbourne, N.I. (whose brother had been an unsuccessful suitor of Lady Byron) and Frances Carr (Sarah’s sister). All three continued to figure in Ada’s life as she grew into maturity.
In
