Lady Georgiana Chatterton (1806–1876)

Henrietta Georgiana Iremonger, known as Georgiana, was born in London, the daughter of the Rev. Lascelles Iremonger, prebendary of Winchester Cathedral, and his wife Harriet Gambier, the sister of Admiral Lord James Gambier. In 1824, she married Sir William Abraham Chatterton of Castle Mahon, County Cork, Ireland. Her earliest published work was the children’s collection Aunt Dorothy’s Tales, published anonymously in 1837, followed by Rambles in the South of Ireland (1839) which proved extremely successful. Her other works included romantic novels and biographies including A Good Match, The Heiress of Drosberg, The Cathedral Chorister, and Memorials of Admiral Lord Gambier. She wrote the play Oswald of Deira and translated The Consolation of the Devout Soul from the Italian. After the death of Sir William, Lady Chatterton remarried in 1859 to Edward Heneage Dering, a fellow novelist 20 years her junior. The couple lived at Baddesley Clinton Hall near Warwick in what has been termed a menage-a-quatre with the owner of the property, Marmion Edward Ferrers, and his wife Rebecca, Lady Chatterton's niece. Dering had earlier become a Roman Catholic; Lady Chatterton converted in 1875.