LETTERS AND PAPERS OF STEPHEN LUSHINGTON

The contents comprise:

7854/1 LETTERS AND PAPERS OF STEPHEN LUSHINGTON, 19th cent
Correspondence and papers of and relating to Dr Stephen Lushington (1782-1873).

7854/1/1 LETTERS TO AND FROM LADY HESTER LUSHINGTON, 1804-1805
Hester (1753-1830) was Stephen Lushington's mother. Her father was John Boldero (1716-1789), a London banker of Aspenden Hall, Hertfordshire.

7854/1/2 LETTERS TO STEPHEN LUSHINGTON FROM HIS BROTHER SIR HENRY LUSHINGTON, 1832
Sir Henry Lushington 2nd Bt. (1775-1863), Consul General at Naples [Italy] (1815-1832). Married Fanny Maria Lewis, sister of Matthew Gregory 'Monk' Lewis, writer, author of 'The Monk'.

7854/1/3 LETTERS TO STEPHEN LUSHINGTON FROM HIS SISTERS AMELIA LUSHINGTON AND MARY LUSHINGTON, 1832,
Amelia (d. 1853) and Mary ('Lushie') were Stephen Lushington's two spinster sisters.

7854/1/4 LETTERS FROM STEPHEN LUSHINGTON TO THOMAS WILLIAM CARR, 1821
Thomas William Carr (1770-1829) was the father of Lushington's wife Sarah Grace Carr (1794-1837).

7854/1/5 LETTERS TO STEPHEN LUSHINGTON FROM VARIOUS WRITERS, 1821-1872

7854/1/6 LETTERS FROM STEPHEN LUSHINGTON TO FRANCES CARR, 1836-1845
Frances Rebecca Carr (1796-1880) was a sister of Sarah Grace Carr who married Stephen Lushington. Following Sarah's death in 1837 Frances ('Aunt Fanny') moved to live with Stephen and manage his household and family, first at Merry Hill, Hertfordshire, and then at Ockham Park, Surrey. Frances was an intelligent woman who had enjoyed the privileges of the Carr family and their circle of friends which included many well known literary and artistic people.

7854/1/7 LETTERS FROM STEPHEN LUSHINGTON TO HIS DAUGHTER FRANCES LUSHINGTON, 1844-1867
Frances Lushington (1828-1900) was a pioneer educationalist. She and her sisters ran the Ockham Industrial Schools which had been set up by Lady Byron's daughter. Frances with her sister Alice founded one of the first co-educational boarding schools in the country in Kingsley, Hampshire, in 1875. Pupils at the school included the children of servants as well as those of wealthier parents. The school closed not long after the death of Frances in 1900.

7854/1/8 LETTERS FROM STEPHEN LUSHINGTON TO HIS DAUGHTER ALICE LUSHINGTON, 1845-1866
Alice Lushington (1829-1903)

7854/1/9 LETTERS FROM STEPHEN LUSHINGTON TO HIS DAUGHTER IN LAW JANE LUSHINGTON (1834-1884), 1865-1870
Five letters bundled together by Vernon Lushington 'Letters from my dear father to Jane - VL Jan 1873'

7854/1/10 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS OF STEPHEN LUSHINGTON, 1800-1870

Stephen Lushington (1782-1873) was an eminent lawyer who made his reputation as counsel to Queen Caroline, wife of George IV, in the matter of her divorce, and to Lady Byron in her divorce. Throughout his life, Stephen was an ardent reformer and staunch churchman, campaigning for the abolition of capital punishment and supporting his friend William Wilberforce by speaking in favour of the Slave Trade Abolition Bill. He was also involved with members of the Clapham Sect. Stephen Lushington spent the last years of his life at Ockham Park, Surrey which belonged to the Byron's daughter, Ada Lovelace. A neighbour wrote 'At Ockham Park the famous Dr Lushington collected around him the cleverest folk of the day' and visitors at Ockham included John Ruskin, William Holman Hunt, William Michael Rossetti, Thomas Woolner, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edward Lear, Benjamin Jowett and the Christian Socialist F D Maurice.

At Ockham Lushington's daughters took over the running of the Ockham Industrial Schools which had been created under Lady Byron's influence. It was there that the two celebrated former slaves William and Ellen Craft were both educated and employed after their escape from the USA.

In 1821 Stephen Lushington married Sarah Grace Carr (died 1837) whose father Thomas Carr, a Scottish lawyer, had known Sir Walter Scott and Robert Southey and whose circle of friends included the writers Joanna Baillie, Maria Edgeworth, and Anna Letitia Barbauld together with Harriet Martineau, Henry Crabb Robinson, Sir Humphrey Davy, Lady Byron and William Wordsworth. Sarah Carr's sisters were Laura, Lady Cranworth whose husband, a Whig politician was twice Lord Chancellor and a neighbour a friend of Charles Darwin; and Isabella, Lady Eardley whose husband was Sir Culing Eardley a religious campaigner and a prime mover in the founding of the Evangelical Alliance.

Stephen Lushington was a judge of the High Court of Admiralty from 1838 and Dean of Arches from 1858 to 1867. He died at Ockham Park in 1873.

There are no access restrictions.

Deposited by Mr R Norris of London through David Taylor of Cobham in October 2005 and January 2014.

An item level description of the archive is available on the Surrey History Centre online catalogue