Gertrude Elizabeth Blood
Encyclopedia
Lord Colin Campbell
Lord Colin Campbell was a Scottish Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1878 to 1885.Campbell was the fifth son of George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, and his wife Lady Elizabeth Georgiana, daughter of George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland...
, a brother-in-law of Princess Louise
Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll
The Princess Louise was a member of the British Royal Family, the sixth child and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and her husband, Albert, Prince Consort.Louise's early life was spent moving between the various royal residences in the...
, Queen Victoria's fourth daughter.
Biography
Her parents were Edmund Maghlin Blood (1815, Brickhill, Co. Clare - 1891, Chelsea, LondonChelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
) and Mary Amy Fergusson (1815, Leixlip
Leixlip
-Politics:Since 1988 Leixlip has had a nine member Town Council , headed by a Cathaoirleach , which has control over many local matters, although it is limited in that it is not also a planning authority...
, Co. Kildare - 8 Oct 1899, Chelsea, London
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
) who had married in 1851. The Blood family had held estates in County Clare since the reign of Elizabeth I. Edmund and Mary produced three children: Neptune William (born 7 July 1853), Mary Beatrice (born c1855) and Gertrude Elizabeth.
Gertrude, a statuesque dark-eyed and celebrated beauty, met Lord Colin Campbell in October 1880 while visiting friends in Scotland, and they had become engaged within days. The couple married on 21 July 1881.
Lord Colin Campbell had been born on 9 March 1853, the fifth son of Sir George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll and Lady Elizabeth Georgiana Sutherland-Leveson-Gower
Elizabeth Campbell, Duchess of Argyll
Lady Elizabeth Georgiana Leveson-Gower CI VA was the eldest daughter of the 2nd Duke of Sutherland by his wife Harriet Elizabeth Georgiana Howard. She was married on the 31 July 1844 to George Douglas Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, the eldest son of the 7th Duke of Argyll...
. He graduated as a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.), was the Member of Parliament for Argyllshire from 1878 to 1885, and started practising as a barrister in 1886.
The wedding had been twice postponed by Lord Colin because of his health issues, and when he proposed an antenuptial agreement, requiring being nursed until his doctor felt that he was well enough to consummate the marriage, Edmund Blood suspected the worst and openly inquired whether Lord Colin was suffering from "that loathsome disease". Gertrude's mother, though, wanted wedding plans to proceed, perhaps because it would provide an entrée to what she regarded as elevated social circles. The Duke of Argyll opposed the match, feeling that his son would be marrying below his station.
The wedding took place in July 1881, the Campbells took up residence at 79 Cadogan Place, and it turned out that Lord Colin did indeed have a venereal disease and had infected Gertrude. It is generally assumed that he had syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
but there is no conclusive proof that this was the disease he was suffering from. Gertrude was granted a judicial separation from Lord Colin in 1884 (later upheld on appeal), on the grounds of cruelty, that he had knowingly infected her. In late 1884 both parties filed for divorce, although the trial did not take place until the end of 1886. Lord Colin accused his wife of adultery, citing four names. George Spencer-Churchill
George Spencer-Churchill, 8th Duke of Marlborough
George Charles Spencer-Churchill, 8th Duke of Marlborough DL , styled Earl of Sunderland until 1857 and Marquess of Blandford between 1857 and 1883, was a British peer.-Background and education:...
, notorious adulterer and older brother of Lord Randolph Churchill
Lord Randolph Churchill
Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill MP was a British statesman. He was the third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough and his wife Lady Frances Anne Emily Vane , daughter of the 3rd Marquess of Londonderry...
, was named as a co-respondent, as was Captain Eyre Massey Shaw
Eyre Massey Shaw
Captain Sir Eyre Massey Shaw KCB was the Superintendent of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade , and its predecessor, the London Fire Engine Establishment, from 1861 to 1891...
, Chief of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. William Court Gully, future Speaker
Speaker of the British House of Commons
The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the United Kingdom's lower chamber of Parliament. The current Speaker is John Bercow, who was elected on 22 June 2009, following the resignation of Michael Martin...
of the House of Commons, acted as his counsel. Gertrude was defended by Sir Charles Russell, who later defended Florence Maybrick
Florence Maybrick
Florence Elizabeth Maybrick was an American woman convicted in Great Britain of murdering her considerably older husband, James Maybrick.-Early life:...
, accused of poisoning James Maybrick
James Maybrick
James Maybrick was a Liverpool cotton merchant. After his death, his wife, Florence Maybrick, was convicted of his murder by poisoning in a sensational trial. The "Aigburth Poisoning" case was widely reported in the press on both sides of the Atlantic...
. Tipperary
Tipperary
Tipperary is a town and a civil parish in South Tipperary in Ireland. Its population was 4,415 at the 2006 census. It is also an ecclesiastical parish in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly, and is in the historical barony of Clanwilliam....
-born William Francis Butler
William Francis Butler
Lieutenant-General Sir William Francis Butler GCB PC was an Irish 19th-century British Army officer, writer, and adventurer.-Military career:...
, noted soldier, adventurer and author was the third party named. Thomas Bird, the physician who had treated both Colin and Gertrude for their afflictions, made up the last of the quartet. Harry Furniss
Harry Furniss
Henry Furniss was an artist and illustrator, born in Wexford, Ireland. His father was English and his mother Scottish, Furniss identifying himself as English...
the illustrator was kept busy during the trial, producing numerous portraits of the personalities involved for the daily newspapers.
The Blood parents had enjoyed a quiet, respectable lifestyle which was thrown into turmoil by the lengthy and scandalous divorce trial of their daughter with its prurient revelations.
That Gertrude Blood had been denied a divorce must be seen in the light of the double standards prevalent in Victorian England. Christabel Pankhurst
Christabel Pankhurst
Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, DBE , was a suffragette born in Manchester, England. A co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union , she directed its militant actions from exile in France from 1912 to 1913. In 1914 she became a fervent supporter of the war against Germany...
had the following to say:
"According to man-made law a wife who is even once unfaithful to her husband has done him an injury which entitles him to divorce her...On the other hand, a man who consorts with prostitutes, and does this over and over again throughout his married life, has, according to man-made law, been acting only in accordance with human nature, and nobody can punish him for that."
With the trial over, Gertrude set about reshaping her life. She had always been fond of writing and turned easily to journalism, writing columns on art and travel, fashion, music and the theatre, sport and fishing - one of her favourite pastimes. Her other talents included painting, riding, cycling, swimming, a fine singing voice, an excellent command of French and Italian (which she had spoken long before being introduced to English), a bit of German, Spanish and Arabic, and was recognised as an expert fencer. She contributed regularly to the columns of the Saturday Review
Saturday Review (London)
The Saturday Review of politics, literature, science, and art was a London weekly newspaper established by A. J. B. Beresford Hope in 1855....
and the Pall Mall Gazette
Pall Mall Gazette
The Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
and later edited the Ladies Field. During her career she used the pseudonyms "Véra Tsaritsyn", "G. E. Brunefille" and "Q.E.D". Although ostracised by the very society of which she had longed to be part - they had closed ranks when it became apparent that a member of their set was being publicly challenged - her vivaciousness, liberal outlook, creativity and acerbic wit made her a welcome addition to literary and artistic circles. She was a confidante of Whistler
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
who described her from his first meeting as "the very handsome and exceedingly amiable lady", and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
saw her as a goddess. Her relationship with Frank Harris
Frank Harris
Frank Harris was a Irish-born, naturalized-American author, editor, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day...
and Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, whom she called "the great white slug", was less cordial. She posed for Whistler for his painting Harmony in White and Ivory: Portrait of Lady Colin Campbell, which was lost or deliberately destroyed, and commissioned a portrait from Frank Duveneck
Frank Duveneck
Frank Duveneck was an American figure and portrait painter.-Youth:Duveneck was born in Covington, Kentucky, the son of German immigrant Bernard Decker. Decker died when Frank was only a year old and his widow remarried Joseph Duveneck...
whose future wife, the artist Elizabeth Otis Lyman Boott (1846–1888), was also a close friend. Gertrude knew Duveneck well enough to secretly send some of his Venetian etchings to the New Society's first exhibition in 1881. She was regarded as eccentric and Augustus Hare
Augustus Hare
Augustus John Cuthbert Hare was an English writer and raconteur.He was the youngest son of Francis George Hare of Herstmonceux, East Sussex, and Gresford, Flintshire, Wales, and nephew of Augustus William Hare and Julius Hare...
records that she "wore a live snake around her throat in hot weather because it keeps one's neck so cool". In her column of 20 October 1897 in The World, she wrote a piece entitled ‘Modern Gladiators’ under the name "Véra Tsaritsyn", about attending the screening of a silent film at the Aquarium in London. The film covered the World Heavyweight Title clash at Carson City between James Corbett
James J. Corbett
James John "Gentleman Jim" Corbett was an Irish-American heavyweight boxing champion, best known as the man who defeated the great John L. Sullivan. He also coached boxing at the Olympic Club in San Francisco...
and Bob Fitzsimmons
Bob Fitzsimmons
Robert James "Bob" Fitzsimmons , was a British boxer who made boxing history as the sport's first three-division world champion. He also achieved fame for beating Gentleman Jim Corbett, the man who beat John L. Sullivan, and is in The Guinness Book of World Records as the Lightest heavyweight...
on 17 March 1897.
Her description eulogises the physical clash and underlines her enjoyment of the sensual.
Shaw noted in his diary on 17 October 1889, that he had written to Edmund Yates
Edmund Yates
Edmund Hodgson Yates was a British novelist and dramatist. He was born in Edinburgh to the actor and theatre manager Frederick Henry Yates and held an appointment for a period of time in the General Post Office as an adult...
asking that he give the position of art critic at The World to Lady Colin Campbell. Shaw's easily readable art and music reviews appeared regularly in The World and The Star
The Star (London)
The Star was a London evening newspaper founded in 1788.The first edition was printed on 3 May 1788 under the editorship of Peter Stuart. Founding sponsors of the new paper included publisher John Murray and William Lane of the Minerva Press...
, but as his time was taken up in other ways, he would gladly resign from what he regarded as a bore. Much later he would write to Frank Harris
Frank Harris
Frank Harris was a Irish-born, naturalized-American author, editor, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day...
, "From Lady Colin Campbell onward, I have been familiar with celebrated beauties and with what is by no means the same thing, really beautiful women."
It is ironic that this remarkable woman is remembered for her divorce trial and is characterised as promiscuous and a courtesan. Shaw interviewed her in 1893 and wrote:
"Imagine a lady with a lightning wit, a merciless sense of humour, a skill in journalism surpassing that of any interviewer, a humiliatingly obvious power of reckoning you up at a glance, and probably not thinking much of you, a superb bearing that brings out all the abjectness in your nature, and a beauty the mere fame of which makes you fall into an attitude of amateurishly gallant homage that fulfils the measure of your sneaking confusion. The custom is for the interviewer to describe the subject of an interview as his "victim". It is not possible to express how completely the tables were turned on this occasion." -George Bernard Shaw
Gertrude Elizabeth Blood died at Carlyle Mansions in London on 1 November 1911 after a long illness and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium
Golders Green Crematorium
Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000, and was opened in 1902 by Sir Henry Thompson....
on 5 November.
Selected works
- Topo, A Tale About English Children in Italy London: Belfast, Marcus Ward & Co., 1876 under the nom-de-plume G. E. Brunefille, illustrated by Kate GreenawayKate GreenawayCatherine Greenaway , known as Kate Greenaway, was an English children's book illustrator and writer, who spent much of her childhood at Rolleston, Nottinghamshire. She studied at what is now the Royal College of Art in London, which at that time had a separate section for women, and was headed by...
- A Book of the Running Brook and of Still Waters (1885)
- Darell Blake, a Study :Trischler (1889) - a novel
- Etiquette of Good Society (1893) (editor)
- The Lady's Dressing-Room (1893) (translator)
- A Woman's Walks - London: Eveleigh Nash, 1903 - a selection of essays first published in "The World"
- Bud and Blossom, a play
- St. Martin's Summer, a play with Clothilde Graves
- A Miracle in Rabbits