Lady Dorothy Fanny Nevill (1 April 1826 London- 24 March 1913 London), was an English writer, hostess, horticulturist and plant collector.

She was one of five children of Horatio Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford

Horatio Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford

Horatio Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford , styled Lord Walpole between 1809 and 1822, was a British peer and politician.-Background:...

 and Mary Fawkener, daughter of William Augustus Fawkener

William Augustus Fawkener

-Background:William Fawkener was one of the sons of Sir Everard Fawkener, a merchant and then British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, who did not marry until he was aged 53, and thus died in 1758 while William was still young. His mother was Harriet daughter of General Charles Churchill...

, sometime envoy extraordinary at St Petersburg and close friend of Empress Catherine

Catherine II of Russia

Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great , Empress of Russia, was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia on as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg...

. She received no formal education, but was tutored by a governess in French, Greek, Italian and Latin.

In 1847, she was embroiled in a scandal when caught in a summerhouse with a notorious rake, George Smythe MP

George Smythe, 7th Viscount Strangford

George Smythe, 7th Viscount Strangford , styled The Honourable George Smythe until 1855, was a British Conservative politician, best known for his association with Benjamin Disraeli and the Young England movement...

, heir to a peerage. Smythe refused to marry her, and her parents's actions and statements destroyed her reputation. In 1847 she married a cousin twenty years her senior, one Reginald Henry Nevill (d. 1878), a grandson of the 1st Earl of Abergavenny

George Nevill, 1st Earl of Abergavenny

George Nevill, 1st Earl of Abergavenny was an English Peer.He was the oldest son of William Nevill, 16th Baron Bergavenny and Katharine Tatton....

 and produced six children, only four of whom survived beyond childhood. She travelled extensively and cultivated a large circle of literary and artistic friends, with a sprinkling of politicians, including James McNeill 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...

, Richard Cobden

Richard Cobden

Richard Cobden was a British manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman, associated with John Bright in the formation of the Anti-Corn Law League as well as with the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty...

, Joseph Chamberlain

Joseph Chamberlain

Joseph Chamberlain was an influential British politician and statesman. Unlike most major politicians of the time, he was a self-made businessman and had not attended Oxford or Cambridge University....

 and Disraeli, whom she greatly admired. She was however, never received by Queen Victoria.

In 1851 the Nevills acquired a large Sussex property, 'Dangstein' near Petersfield. Dorothy Nevill turned the estate garden into a horticultural landmark. Her exotic plants were housed in seventeen conservatories and were the subject of numerous articles in journals on horticulture. Through her plants she became friendly with both William

William Jackson Hooker

Sir William Jackson Hooker, FRS was an English systematic botanist and organiser. He held the post of Regius Professor of Botany at Glasgow University, and was the first Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He enjoyed the friendship and support of Sir Joseph Banks for his exploring,...

 and Joseph Hooker

Joseph Dalton Hooker

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...

 at Kew and supplied Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

 with rare plants for his researches. She kept exotic birds and mammals on the estate, farmed silkworms and maintained a museum of her collections. After her husband's death, when he left all his money to their surviving children to curtail her expenditures, she moved to another of their estates, 'Stillyans' near Heathfield

Heathfield, East Sussex

Heathfield is a small market town, and the principal settlement in the civil parish of Heathfield and Waldron in the Wealden District of East Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, England.-Location:...

 in Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

.

She was a noted conversationalist - "The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment." - and leading society hostess, her salons attracting celebrities and politicians. She served on the first committee of the Primrose League

Primrose League

The Primrose League was an organisation for spreading Conservative principles in Great Britain. It was founded in 1883 and active until the mid 1990s...

 and wrote a number of volumes of memoirs:

• Recollections (1906)
• Leaves from the Notebooks of Lady Dorothy Nevill (1907)
• Under Five Reigns (1910)
• My Own Times (1912).
• Mannington and the Walpoles, Earls of Orford (1894)

Dorothy Nevill died on 24 March 1913 in Charles Street, London.

Her son, Ralph Nevill, possibly fathered by Disraeli, wrote Life and Letters of Lady Dorothy Nevill (1919). Her daughter, Meresia Dorothy Augusta Nevill (1849–1918), was also a dedicated worker for the Primrose League

Primrose League

The Primrose League was an organisation for spreading Conservative principles in Great Britain. It was founded in 1883 and active until the mid 1990s...

. She served for many years as treasurer of the Ladies' Grand Council and died in London on 26 October 1918.

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