History - The House And Its Owners
Regency Glamour 1807 - 1841
At Lady Irwin's death in 1807 Temple Newsam was inherited by her eldest daughter, the Marchioness of Hertford.
The previous year her close friend the Prince of Wales had paid a visit to the house and presented her and her
mother with gifts including a quantity of Chinese wallpaper and the two Moses tapestries, later hung in new
drawing rooms on the south wing. Their friendship, always platonic, was nevertheless the cause of much scurrilous
journalism and satire.
Lady Hertford was a woman of great taste and style (hardly surprising as the mother of the founder of the Wallace
Collection). She redecorated many of the principal rooms of the house and transformed the Great Hall into a
romantic evocation of an Old English mansion. This work was to continue later in the century during the regime
of Emily Meynell Ingram. Since Lady Hertford's son was excluded from inheriting Temple Newsam, the property
passed to her eldest sister Lady William Gordon at her death in 1834. Having married a rogue in her youth and
lost her only daughter, Lady William Gordon lived quietly and was much involved in charitable work in the
neighbourhood. On her death the estates passed to her nephew, Hugo Charles Meynell Ingram.
Victorian & Edwardian Heyday 1841 - 1922
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