A connection between "Making Money" and "Dodger" :-)

[RathDarkblade]

I'm currently reading Dr Ian Mortimer's new book, "The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain" (a very fun book so far, by the way -- I recommend it). Anyway, on pg. 86-7 I've come across someone who sounds familiar. To paraphrase from the book:

Harriet Mellon is the illegitimate daughter of a poor peasant woman from County Cork, Ireland, who makes a living by looking after the clothes of some traveling actors.

The young Harriot longed to be on the stage, and at age 10 she makes her stage debut in a barn. Her charisma and potential "star power" catches the eye of Richard Sheridan, who casts her in his play The Rivals in 1795. She is not a natural leading lady, but her intelligence, beauty, vivacity and rural humility makes her many admirers, and within 20 years time she earns no less than 600 GBP a year.

But this is just pocket money. One of her admirers is the elderly Thomas Coutts, who just happens to be the principal partner in Coutts Bank. His wife suffers from dementia, and when she dies in 1815, he asks Harriot to marry him. She says yes, and their marriage proves to be very happy.

Naturally, Thomas's daughters are jealous of her, afraid that their father is going to disinherit them. They are decidedly unfriendly. Mr Coutts is disappointed that they treat his new wife so meanly, and when he dies 7 years later, he leaves her his entire estate (including his 50% share of the bank) in his will.

Harriot proves herself by running the bank very efficiently, and despite the shabby treatment that she gets from Coutts's daughters, she gives them an allowance of 10,000 GBP a year.

But tongues really set wagging in 1827 when she marries the young duke of St Albans, 27 years her junior. This second marriage is equally happy, but the nobility are outraged and shun her for "rising above her station". But Harriot doesn't care and never trades respect for respectability. Her personal assets, which she controls through the bank, makes her worth 2 million GBP. She yields it to no-one, not even her husband, even if he is a duke.

Remind you of someone? I'd say this is Mrs Lavish in "Raising Money". Consider:

- Mrs Lavish danced on the stage when she was young
- She met Mr Lavish, owner of the A-M Bank, that way
- They married, and when Mr Lavish died, he left her the bank
- Mrs Lavish runs the bank efficiently
- Her son and daughter(s) hate her, and fear being disinherited

Sounds good enough for me! I doubt the real Harriot drank that much gin, or had a dog called Mr Fusspot, but oh well.

The wikipedia entry for Harriot only gives the bare details of her life, by the way -- but they do mention that her youngest step-granddaughter, Angela Burdett, inherited Harriot's her property and fortune. One condition of the inheritance was to carry on the Coutts name, so she became Angela Budett-Coutts.

Remind you of anything?

 

[Tonyblack]

Terry has often stated that he read a lot of factual books from that period. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if he used them (as he did with Dodger) for his other books.

 

[raisindot]

Sounds a bit nebulous to me. The "dancer/actress/singer/" marrying the older banker/tycoon, inheriting and running the business after the old coot dies and being at odd with the old man's kids is a shopworn narrative cliche that's been repeated ad nauseum in all sorts of bad books and movies over the years.

 

[RathDarkblade]

I don't know if it's that nebulous, really. Yes, this narrative device is cliche now -- but back when it happened (in the late 1700s), it was very unusual for someone from the upper-middle-class to marry a lower-middle-class person. *shrug* As for a duke to marry a former stage actress? Outrageous! Out of the question!

Of course, there have been plenty of upper-class men who had lower-class mistresses -- and vice-versa (i.e. lots of upper-class women who *ahem* "dallied" with lower-class men). But I can't recall many examples of them going so far as marriage, can you? (I'm not thinking of anything in the last 30-40 years, here).

Again, I agree that this sort of thing happens a lot in fiction. I just can't recall many real-life cases of this. (And yes, I'm not including the Abdication Crisis of 1938; Wallis Simpson was an upper-class socialite, so the "upper orders" could have nothing against her except her marital status ... and, IIRC, the fact that she was American).

 

[=Tamar]

I wasn't saying that Sir Terry was merely using a cliche, nor saying it didn't happen for real. I once heard/read him say that he tried to avoid using anything that he couldn't find at least three examples of in real life, so he could point to them as evidence of multiple sources. While it is quite likely that Harriet Mellon's life provided some details for Making Money, the general pattern has been used so often that it was readily available for anyone to play with. It was the apparent concept of a complete identification of a single source that I called nebulous.
Considering that many men lost wives to childbirth and disease, and remarried younger women, I would think that the major reasons for the fame of that particular example were the famous people involved, that the amount of money was much larger than usual, and that she managed to hang onto it even after remarrying.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Fair enough. Oh, and ... one more factor: the fact that Harriet's step-grand-daughter was the richest and most independent woman in Victorian London.

But also the fact of Harriet's origins: the illegitimate daughter of a poor peasant. IIRC, in those days, illegitimacy was a barrier to advancement, no?

 

[=Tamar]

Not always. It depended on who the father was and whether they were acknowledged . The acnowledged illegitimate daughter of a duke, for instance, might have some standing.