Image ID: 24459

Mary Chaworth, photograph of a miniature watercolour portrait, 1800

Hucknall
England

Mary Chaworth was the heiress of the Annesley estate. Mary Chaworth was born in 1785. She was brought up by her mother Ann, her father George having left home shortly after her birth. The Chaworth family had owned the estate since the reign of Henry VI when George Chaworth, third son of Sir Thomas Chaworth, Knight of Wiverton, married Alice de Annesley in circa 1442. The first lord of the Annesley manor to take their name from the estate was Ralph Britto de Annesley, who died sometime between 1156 (when he founded Felley Priory) and 1161. Mary Ann Chaworth was romantically involved with the young poet Byron in 1803 and she was the sweetheart of his youth. They first met when Byron was 10, Mary 12, when Byron was on holiday from Harrow School in 1803. Byron came to stay at Newstead and rode over to Annesley Hall, afterwards often staying the night. As it happened, Mary Chaworth was the Grand Niece of the Lord Chaworth who had been spitted on a sword by 'Wicked Jack' Byron, the poet's great uncle. The Byron family's solicitor, a Mr Hanson, had suggested to a younger Byron the poet that as Miss Chaworth was only a year or two older then he had better marry her. 'What Mr. Hanson', replied the well-read boy, 'the Capulets and Montegues intermarry'? But it wasn't to be. She considered him a 'lame, bashful, boy lord'. Byron later wrote 'Had I married Miss Chaworth perhaps the whole tenor of my life would have been different.' Instead, Mary Chaworth was married in All Saints church to John Musters in 1805. Her marriage deteriorated and on 23 December 1814 she started writing to Byron. He had become famous by then and was no longer interested. Mary separated from her husband on 10 April 1814 and tried to visit Byron in Hastings, but he ran off just in time. In the following years she became mentally unstable. Her son, Volunteer 1st Class Musters, died of malaria in Brazil in 1832 during a voyage with the ship The Beagle, shortly after he had become a new friend of Charles Darwin. She died in 1832 and there's a memorial for her in the Annesley All Saints Church. She was the last of the Chaworths.

Date: 1800

Organisation Reference: NCCC000545

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