Lady Wentworth, a great-grandmother at age 53

[Paul Theroff]

Probably this is not a record, but it's rare enough to note a woman becoming a great-grandmother at age 53.

Isabella, Lady Wentworth, wrote to her son Lord Raby in 1706 about the birth of her Kelly great-grandchild. The editors of the Wentworth Correspondence say that Isabella was at that time only fifty-three.

She had married in 1667, when she must have been only about 14. Her daughter Frances Arabella Wentworth married the 2nd Lord Bellew in 1686, and Lady Bellew's daughter Mary married Denis Kelly in 1702, when she must have been less than 16.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc2.ark:/13960/t9s181s10&seq=72

[https:/www.LeighRayment.com.au]

Let alone a grandmother at 53, that is amazing.. Today., most at 53 are mothers to teenagers at best.

[Paul Theroff]

By the way, I am in the process of compiling all the suggestions Lady Wentworth made for possible brides for Lord Raby. One of them makes clear that, at least for this family, marriages at a very young age were not considered odd.

On 3 April 1705 she wrote to her son:

"I have found out a match that will please you I am sure very much; she has four thousand a year and very pretty, but what will please you most is -- she is but four year old."!!

[Paul Theroff]

UPDATE:

Because someone questioned Lady Wentworth's age on another forum, I asked a correspondent, Michael Andrews-Reading, who has access to many old records, to look into this.

His reply is this: "The marriage licence dated 9 February 1666/7 for William Wentworth, aged thirty, and Isabella, daughter of Sir Allen Apsley, states she was then aged 18, so born circa 1648."

The date "9 February 1666/7", in modern terms, is 9 February 1667 [the new year didn't used to begin until 25 March].

Thus, on 9 February 1667 Isabella was 18, giving her a birth date in 1648 or 1649. She was thus 57 or 58 in February 1706, when she wrote about her great-grandchild, which presumably had been born not too long before, probably in February 1706, though possibly a month or two before that.

Having a great-grandchild at the age of 57 or 58 is not as unusual as having one at 53, of course. It should be remembered that Queen Victoria was twelve days short of the age of 60 when she had her first one.