Social Victorians/People/Higgins

Also Known As

• Family name: Higgins
• Mr. and Mrs. H. Higgins attended the Duchess of Devonshire's 1897 fancy-dress ball, possibly Henry Vincent Higgins. This page collects notes to help decide who they were.

Organizations

Henry Vincent Higgins

• 1st Life Guards

Timeline

1880 December 17, Marie Louise Parsons and William Lawrence Breese married in Columbus, Ohio.

1894 January 30, Henry Vincent Higgins and Marie Louise Parsons Breese married.

1897 July 2, Mrs. and Mr. Higgins attended Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball. (Mrs. Higgins is #287 on the list of people who were present; Mr. Higgins is #288.)

Costume at the Duchess of Devonshire's 2 July 1897 Fancy-dress Ball

Mrs. Marie Higgins

Marie Higgins attended the Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball.

• She was dressed as Donna Valeria Bodessa in the Italian procession.
• "Mrs. H. Higgins (Florentine lady, fourteenth century), under robe of moiré eau de Nil, embroidered all over with stars; overdress, dalmatique of old Ophelia colour silk velvet, with old embroidery of gold de style."

Grand Opera (Henry Vincent Higgins) by "Spy," Vanity Fair 16 June 1898

Mr. Henry Vincent Higgins

Henry Higgins was dressed as

• Sanchio di Sedilla in the 17th-century procession.
• "(Courtier, Henry III. period), doublet, dark green satin, with small beaded pattern worked all over it; trunks and trunk breeches; dark green satin barred with passementerie; short mantle, dark green velvet, lined with green satin; hat, green felt, high crowned, broad brimmed."

A caricature portrait (right) of Henry Vincent Higgins by Leslie Ward ("Spy") appeared in the 16 June 1898 issue of Vanity Fair, as Number 715 in its "Men of the Day" series, giving a sense of what he looked like at about the time of the ball.

Demographics

• Nationality: Marie Louise Parsons was American, as was her first husband William Lawrence Breese.

Family

• Marie Louise Parsons Breese (16 February 1857 – )
• William Lawrence Breese (1856 – 7 December 1888)
  1. Eloise Lawrence Breese (c. 1881 – 12 December 1953)
  2. William Lawrence Breese (24 February 1883 – March 1915)
  3. Anne Breese (12 January 1885 – 30 October 1959)

• Henry Vincent Higgins ( – 21 November 1928)
• Lady Hilda Jane Sophia Finch-Hatton (1856 – 8 February 1893)
• Marie Louise Parsons Breese (16 February 1857 – )

Relations

1. Eloise Lawrence Breese and Gilbert Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 2nd Earl of Ancaster married on 6 December 1905; she was styled Baroness Willoughby de Eresby after her wedding.
2. William Lawrence Breese died in action in World War I, in France. He married on 23 March 1908 in New York City, but he was in the Royal Horse Guards.
3. Anne Breese and Lord Alastair Robert Innes-Ker, son of the Duke of Roxburghe, married on 10 October 1907.

Notes and Questions

1. Several Higgins families seem to have been in circulation at the end of the 19th century, so at this point, I'm not sure who Mr. and Mrs. Higgins are. Mr. Henry Vincent Higgins had been married to Lady Hilda Finch-Hatton Higgins, but she died on 8 February 1893; he remarried in 1894, so perhaps he and Marie Louise Parsons Breese are the Mr. and Mrs. Higgins. Lending support to the theory that Mr. Higgins is Henry Vincent Higgins, the article in the Gentlewoman calls them Mr. H. and Mrs. H. Higgins. He was in the 1st Life Guards, which is also strong support for this theory. Further, his portrait appeared in Vanity Fair in June 1898 as a "Man of the Day" (see above right).
2. As to Miss Higgins who attended some social events reported in the papers: before 1894 none of Marie Louise Parson Breese's children could possibly have been called Higgins. Eloise Lawrence Breese must have been in the U.K., however, perhaps with her mother. Born, perhaps c. 1881, she would have been 24 at the time of her marriage in 1905. Anne Breese also married a British aristocrat, and William Lawrence Breese was in the British military.