‘In a few weeks I dare say I shall be quite strong’: AAB to Mary Somerville, 20 February 1835, MSBY, Dep. c. 367, fols. 2–3.
a newly ebullient Ada declared, ‘even better than waltzing’: AAB to Mary Somerville, n.d. April 1835, MSBY, Dep c. 367, fol. 3.
Chapter Thirteen: Ada’s Marriage (1835–40)
‘nothing shall be wanting on my part to you and for you . . . to meet all your wishes will always be my first duty’s pleasure’: The private history of the Lovelaces and Lady Hester has recently been identified within an archive held at Brooklands Museum. Long before William King (Lovelace)’s nephew, Hugh Locke King, built the Brooklands race track, William’s younger brother, Peter Locke King, built a large (and surviving) house close by. This house was where the Locke King archive was stored and – due to a breakdown of relations between the two halves of the family – where it remained, unseen. It was returned to Brooklands from a King family house in South Africa during the 1990s. The papers identified in these notes are from boxes 9 and 10 in the Locke King Papers, Brooklands Museum.
‘I thought to myself how few young men whom one meets at balls would talk with so much feeling about their country church’: AAB to William King from Fordhook, 8 June 1835, Dep. Lovelace Byron 165, fols. 1–39.
‘How I envy your chaperon his ride with you’: William King to AAB, n.d. June 1835, ibid.
‘Now do not be angry with me, because I have only just spoken the truth – neither more nor less’: AAB to William King, 28 June 1835, ibid.
Annabella praised Lord King, not merely as ‘a man of rare worth and superior abilities’: AINB to Harriet Siddons, 9 June 1835, HRC, bound vol. 1 of the Byron Collection.
‘Dear little Canary Bird, may the new “cage” be gladdened by your notes’: AINB to AAK, 9 July, 1835, Dep. Lovelace Byron 47.
Chapter Fourteen: An Unconventional Wife (1836–40)
A disappointingly pompous George Ticknor, calling in at Fordhook to inspect Lady Byron’s Ealing school: Anna Eliot Ticknor (ed.), Life, Letters & Journals of George Ticknor, 2 vols. (Houghton Mifflin, 1900), vol. 1, p. 53.
‘for the first time in my life – I may say that I feel without a care on earth . . .’: AINB to Harriet Siddons, 22 July 1835, HRC, bound vol. 1 of the Byron Collection.
‘These catastrophes are very frequent in my house, I think I will act being in a rage next time . . .’: AINB to Elizabeth Siddons, [July] 1835, HRC, bound vol. 1 of the Byron Collection.
‘I want my Cock at night to keep me warm’: AAK to William King, 8 and 9 October 1835, Dep. 165, fols. 1–39.
‘Ou won’t hurt her I think, will ou?’: AAK to William King, 11 March 1838, Dep. 165, fols. 80–119.
Chatting to Mary Somerville’s attentive son during the 1840s about her sexual life: All of Ada’s extravagant confidences to Woronzow Greig were recorded in his brief private memoir (MSBY, Dep. b. 206, folder MSIF 2–40). Greig had also heard some of the stories from Lady Byron in or before 1835, when he was delegated to transmit the outline of Ada’s escapade to William King. Ada spiced up the details. Sophia De Morgan, writing to Lord Wentworth in 1875, stressed Ada’s delight in shocking her listeners. Greig was a susceptible man.
The result, in the view of a displeased Ada, was that she looked like ‘a crop-eared dog’: AAK to Mary Somerville, 1 November 1835, MSBY Dep. c. 367, folder MSBY-3.
The likeness to Lord Byron was declared by her to be ‘most striking’: AAK to AINB, 29 October 1835, Dep. Lovelace Byron 41, fols. 111–15.
Writing to their mother, Ada teased that warnings would be sent if either Martha or Mary decided to elope: AAK to Mary Somerville, 10 February 1836, MSBY, Dep. c. 367, folder MSBY-3.
Writing a character portrait of her daughter during the early years of Ada’s marriage: AINB, ‘Portrait’ of Ada, dated 1840 by William Lovelace, but it may have been written much earlier, Dep. Lovelace Byron 118, fols. 86–7.
‘Hester and I are very happy together,’ Ada told William: AAK to William King, 1 August 1836, Dep. Lovelace Byron 165, fols. 40–79.
‘You will however I trust remember that if either at present or at any future time’: AAK to Lady Hester King Sr, 11 June 1837, LKC.
‘No matter . . . The occurrence of last week will of course now be blotted out from the record of events’: AAK to Lady Hester King Sr, 12 February 1838, LKC.
The fault was theirs, she wrote fiercely back to Lady Hester’s brother on 23 June 1846: AAL to Lord Fortescue (Lady Hester King Sr’s brother, formerly Viscount Ebrington), 23 June 1846, LKC.
‘Our school is doing so well, that I am very anxious it should do better’: AAL to AINB, Wednesday [1838], in Betty Toole, Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers [sic] (Strawberry Press, 1992), pp. 104–5. Doubtless altered for readability, Toole’s quotation from Babbage should read ‘The Enchantress of Number’.
‘Ada teaches so that one cannot help learning,’ an admiring friend had exclaimed: AINB, ‘Portrait’ of Ada, Dep. Lovelace Byron 118, fols. 86–7.
Fond personal recollections played a larger part than phrenological diagnosis when Robert described Miss King: R. R. Noel, Notes biographical and phrenological illustrating a collection of casts (of skulls) (published for private circulation, 1883; Senate House Library, UCL).
Her letter, although spiky, stopped just short of a sneer: Hester King Jr to Louisa Noel, 4 August 1839, regarding the Alfred Chalon 1838 portrait. This correspondence is in WP, Add MS 54089.
Little Byron, described by Hester to Robert Noel’s wife as ‘an exceedingly odd boy’: Hester King Jr to Louisa Noel, 14 September 1839, WP, Add MS 54089.
‘Now Ma may go . . . Ma can go downstairs’: AAL to AINB, n.d. 1838–9, see Toole, op. cit., pp. 113–14.
Ada wondered how her mother found the patience to suffer so much tiresome ‘chatteration’: AAL to AINB, n.d. March 1840, Dep. Lovelace Byron 41.
Hester King described Lady Byron to the Noels as a besotted granny: WP, Add
