Image Ref : DRA 1988.tif

Carew family, c.1858

Lady Carew with her two daughters, Beatrix ('B') & Elizabeth (Bessie). Sir Walter Palk Carew of Haccombe (1807-1874) was 8th Baronet. He inherited Marley House at Rattery, but lived mostly at Haccombe. Lady Carew (nee Anne Frances Taylor) was the daughter of Major-General Thomas William Taylor of Ogwell. She and her sister were known at William 1V's Court as the rose and lily of Devon. 'B' was born in 1842 (baptised 28 November 1842) which dates this image to around 1858. Sir Walter and Lady Carew also had a son, Walter Palk Carew, their eldest child, born on 13 April 1838 and baptised on 1 July of that year. The baptism entries of the three children follow one another on the same page in the baptism record of Haccombe parish. The son, Walter, died in June 1873. The North Devon Journal reported on 12 June 1873 that he had 'committed suicide while of unsound mind'. Having been committed by doctors to an asylum at Brislington near Bristol, he cut his throat with a knife. He was interred in the family vault at Haccombe. The sisters did not marry and, there being no other maie heir, that family line died out. DRA 0266 HAC 018