FRED. A. McKENZIE.

MARY LOUISA WHATELY.

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I.

PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD.

Mary Louisa Whately came of a distinguished family.  Her father, Dr. Richard Whately, for many years Archbishop of Dublin, was one of the most remarkable and prominent men of the first half of the nineteenth century, a voluminous writer, a strenuous thinker, and a statesmanlike ecclesiastic.  Her mother, Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. W. Pope of Uxbridge, was, says Miss E.J.  Whately, a woman of “grace and dignity of character, delicacy of mind and sensitive refinement, which were united with high powers of intellect and mental cultivation and a thirst for knowledge seldom exceeded.” [1] She was an ardent Christian, and devoted herself to works of beneficence and Christian service among the poor, as far as her delicate health would allow.

[Footnote 1:  Life of Archbishop Whately, by his daughter, vol. 1. p. 43.]

Mary was born at Halesworth in Suffolk, of which parish her father was then the rector, on August 31, 1824.  The following year her father was appointed Principal of St. Alban Hall, and removed with his family to Oxford.  In 1831 he accepted the Archbishopric of Dublin, and thus at the age of seven Dublin became, what it remained for thirty years, Mary Whately’s home.  She was the third of a family of five, four girls and one boy, who all inherited something of their mother’s delicacy of constitution and a good share of their father’s strength of intellect and character.  They were near enough to each other in age to share one another’s studies and games, and, living a very retired life, depended largely on each other for companionship.  For a portion of the year they resided in the archiepiscopal palace in Dublin.  But on account of the many social demands made on him in the city, the place became distasteful to Dr. Whately, and he engaged a charming country residence called Redesdale, some four or five miles out of town.  Here he resided the larger portion of the year, living a quieter life than was possible in the city, and driving into Dublin on most mornings to attend to his official duties.  In the intervals of study and the discharge of public duty he devoted himself to his garden, in the cultivation of which he displayed much skill and ingenuity.  Redesdale was the children’s home, though the life there was occasionally varied by a stay in London (where their father usually spent a few weeks each spring to attend the House of Lords), at Tunbridge Wells, where they had relatives, or at the seaside, and later by visits to the Continent.