Emily Massingberd was born Emily Caroline Langton Massingberd on 19 December 1847 in
East Stonehouse, Devon. She was the eldest daughter of Charles Langton Massingberd of
Gunby Hall and Harriet Anne Langford. She married her
second cousin, Edmund Langton, in 1867. Edmund was the son of Rev. Charles Langton and
Charles Darwin's sister-in-law Charlotte Wedgwood Langton. After Charlotte died Rev. Langton married Darwin's sister Emily Catherine Darwin in 1863. Emily and Edmund had four children, a son and three daughters: Charlotte Mildred (1868–1941), Stephen (1869–1925), Mary (1871–1950), and Diana (1872–1963). Her husband Edmund died, aged 34, in November 1875, at Eastwood, East Cliffe Road, Bournemouth, the home of his father Rev. Charles Langton. Her son Stephen became a
Major and married
Vernon Lushington's daughter Margaret. Her daughter Mary married General Hugh Maude de Fellenberg Montgomery. Her daughter Diana married Hugh's brother
Field Marshal Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd. Emily was great-grandmother to
Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd (1946–2007), via her daughter Mary's son John Michael Montgomery. Emily died in 1897. In 1944 her daughter Diana and husband Field Marshal Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd gave the Gunby Hall estate to the
National Trust during
World War II, when it was threatened with demolition to make way for an airfield. == Activist years ==