Mabel Annesley

Who was Mabel Annesley?

Lady Mabel Marguerite Annesley was a wood-engraver and watercolour painter. Her work is in many collections, including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of New Zealand. She exhibited in the Festival of Britain in 1952.

She was born on 25 February 1881, at Annesley Lodge, Regent's Park, London, the daughter of Hugh Annesley, 5th Earl Annesley, lieutenant-colonel in the Scots Fusilier Guards and landowner, and his wife, Mabel Wilhelmina Frances Markham, Countess Annesley, greatgranddaughter of Sir Francis Grant, eminent Victorian portrait painter and president of the Royal Academy. Her half-sister, Lady Constance Malleson was a writer, actress, and mistress of Bertrand Russell.

At fourteen, she studied at the Frank Calderon School of Animal Painting in London. At eighteen she was elected a member of the Belfast Art Society and exhibited with the Society for many years.

She married in 1904 and had one son, Gerald. Her husband died in 1913, and a year later she inherited Castlewellan Castle.

She had one child;

⁕Gerald Francis Sowerby married firstly Lady Elizabeth Joceyln, daughter of Earl of Roden,secondly Mary Macdonald and thirdly Elizabeth Cromwell