Social Victorians/People/Selborne

Also Known As

• Family name: Palmer
• Earl of Selborne (U.K. peerage)
  • William Waldegrave Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne (4 May 1895 – 26 February 1942)
• Courtesy Titles
  • Baron Selborne
  • Viscount Wolmer
    • William Waldegrave Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne (1882– 4 May 1895)

Organizations

• University College, Oxford
• Liberal Party and Liberal Unionist
• Member of Parliament
  • For East Hampshire (1886–1892)
  • For West Edinburgh (1892–1895?)

Timeline

1893 October 27, William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne and Beatrix Maud Cecil married.

1897 July 2, Friday, the Earl of Selborne and Lady Selborne attended the Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball at Devonshire House. (William, 2nd Earl of Selborne is #70 on the list of people who attended; Beatrix, Lady Selborne is #557.)

Costume at the Duchess of Devonshire's 2 July 1897 Fancy-dress Ball

Beatrix, Countess of Selborne after a picture of Lady Percy by Vandyk at Hatfield. ©National Portrait Gallery, London.

Beatrix Palmer, Lady Selborne

At the Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball, Beatrix Palmer, Lady Selborne was dressed as Lady Percy.

Lafayette's portrait of "Beatrix Maud (née Cecil), Countess of Selborne after a picture of Lady Percy by Vandyk at Hatfield" in costume is photogravure #186 in the album presented to the Duchess of Devonshire and now in the National Portrait Gallery. The printing on the portrait says, "The Countess of Selborne after a picture of Lady Percy by Vandyk at Hatfield," with a Long S in Countess. ("Countess of Selborne after a picture of Lady Percy").

A painting of Lady Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester by Van Dyck exists, although it is at Petworth House rather than Hatfield; Petworth was the southern home of the Percy family, Earls of Northumberland. Also, the dress Lady Percy is wearing in this 1632–1641 portrait does not seem similar enough to what Beatrix, Countess of Selborne is wearing in her portrait.

William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne

William Waldegrave Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne as an officer of the Duke of Marlborough's Army. ©National Portrait Gallery, London.

William Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne was dressed as an officer of the 16th (or 18th?) century — the newspapers name both centuries or as "an officer of the Duke of Marlborough's Army."

Lafayette's portrait (left) of "William Waldegrave Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne as an officer of the Duke of Marlborough's Army" in costume is photogravure #187 in the album presented to the Duchess of Devonshire and now in the National Portrait Gallery. The printing on the portrait says, "The Earl of Selborne as an officer of the Duke of Marlborough's Army."

Newspaper Descriptions of His Costume

He

• was "in an infantry uniform of the early 16th century."
• "personated ... a soldier of the last century."
• was dressed in an "Infantry uniform of the early 16th century." (The "16th century" in the Morning Post article is difficult to read, but it does not look like "18th century.")
• "was in the Infantry uniform of the early Sixteenth Century."
• wore "an Infantry uniform of the last century."
• wore an "infantry uniform of the early eighteenth century."
• "The EARL OF SELBORN [sic] wore an infantry uniform of the early sixteenth century."

Demographics

• Nationality: English

Family

• William Waldegrave Palmer, 2nd Earl of Selborne (17 October 1859 – 26 February 1942)
• Beatrix Maud Cecil Palmer (– 27 April 1950)

1. Lady Mabel Laura Georgiana Palmer (6 October 1884 – 15 July 1958)
2. Roundell Cecil Palmer, 3rd Earl of Selborne (15 April 1887 – 3 September 1971)
3. Hon. Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer (26 September 1888 – 21 January 1916)
4. Hon. William Jocelyn Lewis Palmer (15 September 1894 – 6 June 1971)

Relations

• Beatrix Maud Cecil Palmer was the eldest daughter of Lord Salisbury, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury.