Amelia Anne Stewart, Marchioness of Londonderry (20 February 1772 – 12 February 1829) was born Amelia Hobart, daughter of the Earl of Buckinghamshire. After her marriage to Robert Steward, Viscount Castlereagh (and later Marquis of Londonderry) in 1794 she was known most commonly as Emily Stewart, Lady Castlereagh.
Marked by several contemporaries to be devoted and quite in love, the marriage produced no children. Instead, Lady Castlereagh kept a menagerie of animals at their country home, Loring Hall in iron cages; contemporary George Berkeley said of her pets ” It seems a strange taste for a lady patroness at Almacks, and one of the most distinguished leaders of the beau monde, to attempt to rival Exeter Change in a small country residence…nevertheless at the gay fetes given by her during the season to her innumerable fashionable friends, no part of the entertainment was more popular than the exhibition of Lady Castlereagh’s pets.”
Berekley goes on to suggest that subordinates of Lord Castlereagh at the War Office tried to ingratiate themselves, while stationed abroad in India and Africa, by sending his lady wife a tiger (known to be bad-tempered), armadillo and other wild animals. She also had, as she told an American dinner companion, a mockingbird and flying squirrel–although the mockingbird would not sing. This discomfitted her, as she was wanting to procure a hummingbird from the US but was worried, once on English soil, that “it wouldn’t hum.”
Aside from her more exotic animals, Lady Castlereagh was adoring of her bull mastiffs, who were said to ride in the carriage beside her. It was one of these dogs that created a stir, when one bit Lord Castlereagh after he tried to intervene in a squabble. In an “official account of the noble lords bite” by radical satirist William Hone in 1817:
Lady Castlereagh was notoriously, among the patronesses, a stickler for propriety. Most notably, she is said to have shut the doors on the Duke of Wellington when he appeared after 11 p.m. She was one of the grande dames, being older than other patronesses during her reign, and often credited to brining the quadrille to London.
Lady Castlereagh was also noted for her beauty and much loved, reportedly, by her servants as both she and Lord Castlereagh were said to afford them every kindness. Emily was much loved for her parties, especially as they were of the diplomatic variety and helped to support her husband’s political career. In her support of her husbands foreign office, she was lauded for her willingness to travel despite the rigors of journey and entertain guests and was often remarked to rarely be from her lordship’s side.
Lady Castlereagh died not longer after her husband’s suicide, in 1822, surviving the last seven years in the country and in ill health.
