Social Victorians/People/Marion Margaret Violet Lindsay Manners

Also Known As

Violet Manners, Self Study at the Easel, c. 1895

• Family name: Manners
• Violet Manners
• Succession of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland and Marquess and Marchioness of Granby, below
• Lord and Lady Manners
• Henry Manners ( – 1888)

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

Violet Manners

• William Reid Dick

Organizations

• Art exhibited
  • Grosvenor Gallery (1877)
  • Palace of Fine Arts, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Illinois (1893)
  • Royal Academy of Arts
  • New Gallery
  • Tate Gallery
• The Souls
• Violet Manners' portrait for the Duchess of Devonshire's ball is the first one in the Devonshire House Fancy Dress Ball Album.

Timeline

1882 November 25, Henry Manners and Violet Lindsay married.

1894 September 28, Violet Manners' eldest son, Robert Charles John Manners, died at the age of 9.

1897 June 28, Monday, according to the Morning Post, Henry Manners, Marquis and Violet Manners, Marchioness of Granby were invited to the 28 June Queen's Garden Party, the official end of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in London.

1897 July 2, Friday, Lord and Lady Granby attended the Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball at Devonshire House. (Violet Manners is #488 on the list of people who attended; Henry, Marquess of Granby is #487.)

1903 April 30, Lady Elizabeth Emily Manners and George William Montagu Douglas Scott married.

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

Violet Manners, Marchioness of Granby as Mary Isabella, Duchess of Rutland, after Cosway. ©National Portrait Gallery, London.

Shannon, Violet, Marchioness of Granby, 1895

At the time of the Duchess of Devonshire's 2 July 1897 fancy-dress ball, Violet Manners was the Marchioness of Granby. Both Violet Manners, Marchioness of Granby and Henry Manners, Marquess of Granby were present. As a member of The Souls, Violet Manners moved in artistic and intellectual circles and wore more progressive styles of clothing than the tight, highly structured and corseted dresses preferred by some women of her time. Lady Granby was 46 years old at the time of the ball.

The portrait by James Jebusa Shannon (right) dates from 1895. The self portrait (above right) shows Lady Granby at her easel; as usual, she appears in a tea dress or perhaps an "artistic gown." Her arm is raised higher than a traditionally structured haute couture gown would permit.

John Thomson's portrait of Violet Manners in costume (left) is photogravure #1 in the album presented to the Duchess of Devonshire and now in the National Portrait Gallery. The printing on the portrait says, "The Marchioness of Granby as Mary Isabella Duchess of Rutland after Cosway," with a Long S in Marchioness and Duchess.

Mary Isabella Somerset, 1779, after Reynolds

The Historical 4th Duchess of Rutland

Lady Mary Isabella Somerset (1756-1831), well known in her day as a leader in the social world, was Marchioness of Granby from 1775, when she and Charles Manners married, until his father died and he became the 4th Duke of Rutland in 1779 and she became the Duchess of Rutland. Lady Mary, then, was the great-grandmother of Violet Manners' husband, Henry John Brinsley Manners, later the 8th Duke of Rutland.

Lady Mary Isabella Somerset does not seem to have been painted by either Richard or Maria Cosway, though she was painted by Joshua Reynolds 4 times. The portrait (right) shows her in 1779, although it is actually an 1816 copy by Robert Smirke of a 1779 Joshua Reynolds painting.

Lady Granby's Costume

According to the printing on the portrait in the commemorative album, she is dressed based on portraits by Richard or Maria Cosway, 18th-century painters of miniature portraits, but she was probably not in the Cosway Quadrille.

Newspaper Accounts

• "The Marchioness of Granby, as Isabella Marchioness of Granby, great-grandmother of the present Marquis, wore a yellow short-waisted dress, with green waistband and shoulder straps."
• "The Marchioness of Granby was Isabella Marchioness of Granby, great-grandmother of the present marquis, and wore a yellow short-waisted dress, with green waist band and shoulder straps, and a lace cap over her hair, tied with blue ribbon."

Commentary on Lady Granby's Costume

• Violet Manners is not dressed in a style from the late 1770s; the empire style came in after the French Revolution, in the 1790s. Her costume is similar in some ways to her own progressive style, which was a version of Victorian artistic dress but more creative and personal than what would have been made for her by some brand-name couturier like the House of Worth.
• Her cap is very unusual. If a historical source for this cap exists, we have never seen anything like it and from the photograph cannot tell how it was made or what is holding its parts in place. The cap is lace fabric, with a clump of ribbon and hair on top and a structure creating fluting that makes it stand away from her head on the side, an ornament under her ear, near where an earring would be if she were wearing earrings, and a tiny dark something under her chin.
• Her hair
• The edges of the fabric of her dress and cap are not unfinished, although they are not hemmed. The edges could have been finished with overlock stitches. (The Merrow overlock machine was invented in 1868, long before Lady Granby's costume was made and long after the historical 4th Duchess of Rutland lived.)
• Over her shoulders and down her back are layers: a top layer of lace, a dark layer of fabric, a lighter fabric and then the blousy bodice and sleeves. Some of the layers extend to below her waist.
• At the center top of her bodice is some device to keep the neckline from gaping and exposing too much of her bosom.
• Her sleeves are slit from the shoulders to the elbow, exposing the upper arm. Pieces of fabric appear to be wrapped around her elbows and knotted, continuing the layered motif.
• Her gloves are fitted on the fingers and loose on her arms, so probably they do not have buttons at the wrists the way late-19th-century evening gloves for women had. The looseness of her gloves is consistent with the ease of her entire costume.
• She has a book, common in many portraits of high-status women in the 18th and 19th centuries but unusual among these portraits, suggesting perhaps that Violet Manners is reminding her viewers that she was leader of The Souls. In this case, it is sitting on a large cushion on her lap.
• This portrait shows a moment in a fictional life: she has been reading and is now looking away, lost in thought. Unusual for these portraits, Violet Manners is doing more than just modeling her costume.
• Lady Granby does not appear to be wearing jewelry except for the ornaments on her cap, the loops of unostentatious pearls hanging from her bodice front and a small decoration gathering the fabric at the center of her bust.
• A number of portraits were painted of Mary, Duchess of Granby, including 4 by Joshua Reynolds, but none seems to be by one of the Cosways and none seems similar to Violet Manners' costume. Perhaps, then, Violet Manners' costume is "after" Cosway in the sense that it is not based on any particular portrait but the general style of the subjects in Cosway miniatures.

Demographics

• Nationality: British

Family

• John Henry Manners, 5th Duke of Rutland (4 January 1778 – 20 January 1857)
• Lady Elizabeth Howard (13 November 1780 – 29 November 1825)

1. Lady Emmeline Charlotte Elizabeth Manners ( – 30 October 1855)
2. Lady Adeliza Elizabeth Gertrude Manners ( – 26 October 1877)
3. Lady Elizabeth Frederica Manners ( – 20 March 1886)
4. George John Henry Manners, Marquess of Granby (26 Jun 1807 – 3 August 1807)
5. Lady Katherine Isabella Manners (4 February 1809 – 20 April 1848)
6. George John Frederick Manners, Marquess of Granby (20 August 1813 – 15 June 1814)
7. Charles Cecil John Manners, 6th Duke of Rutland (16 May 1815 – 3 March 1888)
8. John James Robert Manners, 7th Duke of Rutland (13 December 1818 – 4 April 1906)
9. Lord George John Manners (22 June 1820 – 8 September 1874)

• John James Robert Manners, 7th Duke of Rutland (13 December 1818 – 4 April 1906)
• Catherine Louisa Georgina Marley (28 January 1831 – 7 April 1854)

1. Henry John Brinsley Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland (16 April 1852 – 8 May 1925)

• Janetta Hughan (8 September 1836 – 11 July 1899)

1. Major Lord Edward William John Manners (5 August 1864 – 26 February 1903)
2. Lord Cecil Reginald John Manners (4 February 1868 – 8 September 1945)
3. Lt.-Col. Lord Robert William Orlando Manners (4 February 1870 – 11 September 1917)
4. Lady Elizabeth Emily Manners (6 February 1878 – 22 July 1924)

• Henry John Brinsley Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland (16 April 1852 – 8 May 1925)
• Violet (Marion Margaret Violet Lindsay) Manners, Duchess of Rutland (7 March 1856 – 22 December 1937)

1. Lady Victoria Marjorie Harriet Manners (20 December 1883 – 3 November 1946)
2. Robert Charles John Manners, Lord Haddon (8 August 1885 – 28 September 1894)
3. John Henry Montagu Manners, 9th Duke of Rutland (21 September 1886 – 22 April April 1940)
4. Lady Violet Catherine Manners (24 April 1888 – 23 December 1971)
5. Lady Diana Olivia Winifred Maud Manners (29 August 1892 – 16 June 1986)

Succession of Duke of Rutland and Marquess of Granby

• Duke of Rutland
  • John Henry Manners, 5th Duke of Rutland (24 October 1787 – 20 January 1857)
  • Charles Cecil John Manners, 6th Duke of Rutland (20 January 1857 – 3 March 1888)
  • John James Robert Manners, 7th Duke of Rutland (3 March 1888 – 4 April 1906)
  • Henry John Brinsley Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland (6 June 1896 – 8 May 1925)
• Duchess of Rutland
  • Lady Elizabeth Howard Manners (5th) Duchess of Rutland (22 April 1799 – 20 January 1857)
  • [6th duke died unmarried]
  • Janetta Hughan Manners (7th) Duchess of Rutland (3 March 1888 – 11 July 1899)
  • Violet (Marion Margaret Violet Lindsay) Manners, (8th) Duchess of Rutland (4 April 1906 – 8 May 1925)
• Dowager Duchess of Rutland
  • Violet (Marion Margaret Violet Lindsay) Manners, Duchess of Rutland (8 May 1925 – 22 December 1937)
• Marquess of Granby
  • John Henry Manners, 5th Marquess of Granby (24 October 1787 – )
  • John James Robert Manners, 7th Duke of Rutland ()
  • Henry John Brinsley Manners (1888 – 4 August 1906)
• Marchioness of Granby
  • Janetta Hughan Manners (7th) Duchess of Rutland ( – 3 March 1888)
  • Violet (Marion Margaret Violet Lindsay) Manners (3 March 1888 – 4 August 1906)

Notes and Questions

1. In her life, Violet Manners wore aesthetic dress rather than the style with obvious corseting.
2. Violet Manners was at the Duchess of Devonshire's ball as Lady Granby; her photograph is the first one in the album at the National Portrait Gallery (album).
3. Lady Granby is the Marchioness of Granby; only one Lady Granby attended.
4. Should have just called this page "Manners," as I had done in Vickypedia?