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| Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen Wikimedia commons CC |
Ishbel lived in many houses during her
eight decades and left her influence in many of them in different ways. Some of
the abodes technically belonged to her husband ‘Johnny Aberdeen’ though a few of
the official residences lived in by virtue of Johnny’s high-ranking
appointments, were owned by the state, or in her early years by her father, the
businessman who eventually became Lord Tweedmouth.
Growing up, Ishbel lived much of her time in the
fashionable residence at 29 Upper Brook Street (on the corner of Park Lane, Mayfair,
London) and didn’t want for anything materially speaking, though she wrote of loneliness
during her childhood as she forged her way through a daily, rigorous regime set
by her mother and governess(es). Her parents produced seven children though not
all survived childhood, Ishbel being the fifth born, followed by two more brothers
some three and four years younger.
Although she regarded her early life in London as
being very strict, there was a huge compensation. Three years before her birth,
Dudley Marjoribanks, by then a Member of the United Kingdom Parliament, had bought
a house - Guisachan (the place of the firs) – in Glen Affric in Inverness-shire.
Even though it took twenty-three hours travel to get there, Ishbel loved it. The
journey could have been longer but Dudley knew sufficient people in the Railway
Industry to have a private branch line built relatively close to his Guisachan Estate,
though not too close to spoil his views! At Guisachan, Ishbel could ride, wander
the hills and glens to her hearts content – though not entirely without supervision.
She had a pet grouse (?) and a dog called Fairy.
Dudley Marjoribanks gradually transformed what had
been a relatively modest 18th Century country house into a ‘French-Chateau’
style mansion, filled with his growing collections of artworks. So, from an
early life, Ishbel was surrounded with the tangible results of what one could
do with money at your fingertips. She grew up seeing improvements made to rooms
and whole buildings which gave her a great insight into what she effected herself
in adulthood.
Though she had earmarked him at the age of twelve, by the
time Ishbel was eighteen, her diaries indicate that she was desperately keen to
be noticed by Johnny who was an occasional visitor to Upper Brook Street. One
diary entry for January 20th 1875 states “Lord Aberdeen came to
tea about six. He was so nice, so warm. Oh, Can it be! It seems too bright.”
By February 28th her diary states “Lord A walked home with me!”
The walking home was from church after a Sunday service at Quebec Chapel.
During her teens, the intelligent and driven Ishbel
wasn’t only playing the lovesick maiden. Tutored well in many subjects, she was
a high-achieving student. Though it was suggested she was capable of attending
college (women didn’t easily gain entry to University courses at this time) her
father would have none of it. However, Dudley’s guests were varied and Ishbel
had the opportunities to meet people (mainly men) who were politically energetic
in mainly Liberal activities, many of them influencing her development into
political circles. Ishbel embroiled herself in various good causes, giving much
of her time and effort into using those important contacts who could provide money
and encouragement to improve the lives of women, at that time especially in
London.
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| Lord Aberdeen CC Wikimedia Commons |
By early 1877, after what seemed to be a period of
doubt on Johnny’s part - weeks when he withdrew from her company, absenting himself
to the countryside, causing her no end of heartache - she was over the moon to enter
into a short engagement with him, their marriage taking place in November 1877.
Lessons were learned all the time by Ishbel, some of
them quite heart wrenching. After the wedding on the 7th November, the
couple went to honeymoon at Halstead Place, another of Dudley Marjoribanks houses,
taking all of their substantial wedding presents with them. On the 19th
November there was a robbery and Ishbel’s jewellery and easily portable wedding
goods were stolen, the thieves leaving via an open window. The culprits were
never caught, nor was any jewellery ever recovered. Ishbel, though, wrote that
she was “far too much engrossed in our new-found happiness to be much perturbed
by even such a misadventure as our burglary.”
The couple went on an extended honeymoon travelling abroad
to Europe, Egypt and on to India. Again, never one to miss good opportunities,
Ishbel managed to find a few outlets for her campaigning nature. In Egypt, she
and Johnny ‘adopted’ a few young boys who were regarded as slaves, and found
suitable homes for them, paying their ‘new’ Egyptian parents to house and
educate them. They gifted many copies of the bible which they had dragged
around with them in their copious luggage and set up impromptu medical clinics where
they addressed minor injuries.
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| Haddo House Wikimedia Commons |
It wasn’t till 1878, after their return from their
long honeymoon, that Ishbel had her first sight of Johnny’s ancestral home in
Scotland - Haddo House, roughly twenty miles north of the city of Aberdeen. She
wasn’t much impressed by Haddo calling it a horrible house. However, in
her energetic and thoroughly focused way, over time Ishbel changed the house dramatically
to make it much more presentable in her eyes.
There will be more about Ishbel and Haddo House coming
soon.
Slainthe!
‘Fortune’s Many Houses by Simon Welfare (Atria Books) is an excellent
source for her whereabouts at every stage of her life.
