Who's who: Lady Jennings

Lady Jennings presented KM to Queen Victoria in March 1890.

It’s not entirely clear who Lady Jennings was but most probably she was Lady Mary Adelaide Jennings (wife of Sir John Rogers Jennings 1820-97, knighted in 1887). From 1880 they lived at Minster Lea, Reigate, Surrey (close to Lady Henry Somerset at The Priory).

http://static.stuff.co.nz/files/jenningschart.jpg
Lady Jennings (family tree)

Significantly, Sir John’s brother, David Jennings (1806-1877) had emigrated to New Zealand in 1849, settling in Nelson, where 8 of his 12 children were born. Some of these would have been a similar age to KM and it’s entirely possible that their paths crossed and introductions to their Aunt Mary ‘Back Home’ were were made. These children included:

  • Rev Edward Jennings (1854- ) m. to Elsie Darnell
  • George Clifford Pease Jennings (1853-1893) m. to Bessie Madalena Wilson
  • Louisa Isabel Clara (1856-1927) m. Henry Jardine Crompton
  • Rev Charles William Jennings (1857-1917) m. Agnes Lavinia Grace
  • Nathaniel Lardner Jennings (1861-1889) m. Frances Emma Whitehorn
  • Lancilla Ann (1868-1956)
  • Amelia Adelaide Harriett (1870-1938) m. Alfred Augustus Grace [brother of Agnes Lavinia]

In 1888, a Lady Jennings was presented to Queen Victoria in the May Drawing Room by a Mrs Rogers.

Lady Mary Adelaide Jennings died in 1924, aged 93 (so was born c. 1831, and would have been almost 60 if it is indeed she who presented KM at court).

Ancestry.co.uk
Probate information from Ancestry.co.uk