Louisa Tollemache, 7th Countess of Dysart

She was one of the daughters of Lionel Tollemache, 4th Earl of Dysart, the second of three who survived to adulthood. She and her younger sister, Jane, were educated at Mrs Holt's School for Girls in South Audley Street, Mayfair. ==Marriage and issue==

The Lady Louisa married John Manners in 1765, the couple having eloped to Scotland from Ham House and Manners having thrown the key to the garden door back over the wall to prevent her from returning. At her father's request the marriage was repeated at St James's Church, Piccadilly. ==Art==

's sketch of Ham House, June 1835 A portrait of Louisa by Sir Joshua Reynolds was engraved by Valentine Green, and another by Hoppner, as a peasant, has also been engraved. Hoppner's portrait was sold at Messrs. Robinson and Fisher's rooms for 14,050 guineas on 27 June 1901. This portrait originally belonged to Louisa's daughter, Lady Laura Tollemache, from whom it passed to Louisa's granddaughter, Maria, Marchioness of Ailesbury, and finally came into the possession of the latter's daughter-in-law, the Lady Charles Bruce, by whose executors it was sold. Thomas Lawrence's portrait of Lady Louisa was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1794. Louisa was a notable patron of John Constable, entertaining him at Helmingham, Ham House and London residences at Pall Mall and in Piccadilly. Constable's letters make several references to Lady Dysart and he was evidently at ease with the family. Louisa employed his brother, Golding Constable, as gamekeeper at Helmingham. Others to derive works from Hoppner, Lawrence and Reynolds portraits of Louisa include Henry Bone, Charles Knight and Richard Smythe. ==Title==

The death of John Manners on 23 September 1792, when Louisa was 47, brought the of the Manners' Buckminster estate into the Tollemache family. She succeeded her brother Wilbraham in the earldom of Dysart and barony of Huntingtower on 9 March 1821, aged 75, and on 13 March 1821 she, together with her only unmarried daughter, Laura, was authorised by royal licence to take and bear the surname and arms of Tollemache instead of Manners. Her major inheritance in 1821 had appeared unlikely given her many elder siblings in her younger years. In her middle-age she still had three elder siblings who might have been expected to have had progeny to whom the family title and estates could be passed. However, her eldest surviving-to-adulthood brother Lionel Tollemache, 5th Earl of Dysart had died in 1799 aged 64 with no heirs and her brother Wilbraham Tollemache, 6th Earl of Dysart died in 1821 aged 81, also without any legitimate heirs. Her elder sister Frances also died without surviving children. Thus Louisa, long widowed, came into a substantial inheritance at the age of 75. The Tollemache baronetcy became extinct, but Louisa succeeded to the Earldom of Dysart as the 7th Countess of Dysart in her own right. The estates were divided between her and her younger sister, Lady Jane, with Louisa inheriting Ham House and the surrounding estates in Ham, Petersham and Canbury and Jane receiving Helmingham, Suffolk, Cheshire and Northants. Both families took the name of Tollemache. ==Death and succession==

Increasingly blind in her old age, Louisa died at Ham House, Ham, Surrey on 22 September 1840, aged 95, and was buried at Helmingham on 8 October. She survived her husband by more than half her lifetime and all of her children except her third, Charles. Her will was proved in February 1841. She was succeeded by her grandson, Lionel Tollemache, 8th Earl of Dysart, son of William, Lord Huntingtower. ==References==