WOODHOUSE, Isabel Hervey
Isabel Hervey Woodhouse was born at Westminster, London on 6 December 1857 and baptised at St George's Hanover Square, London on 4 January 1858, only child of William Hervey Woodhouse (1823-16 May 1859), a Liverpool wine merchant, and his wife Sarah Ellen née Cole (1837-1884), who married in Paris on 25 June 1856. In 1853, William Hervey Woodhouse purchased the Irnham Hall Estate, Bourne, Lincolnshire and where he died at on 16 May 1859, aged 34 when his manor and estate at Irnham passed to his young daughter, Isabel. In 1861, his widow Sarah, who was born at Birkenhead, was a 24-year-old land holder, living at 9 Cannon Place, Brighton with daughter Isabel and they retained two indoor servants. Isabel's mother married again at St Andrew's, Hove, Sussex on 19 December 1867, Alexander Crowe, a wealthy East India merchant, living at 45 Hyde Park Square, London and their children, all born around Westminster, were Charles Alexander (1868), Alice Rosina (1870), Matilda Emmeline (1872), Cecil Hervey (1873) and Elizabeth Mary (1874). By 1881 they had moved from London to Pinewood, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire where 23-year-old Isabel was living with her 45-year-old stepfather, who was blind, and 44-year-old mother with three stepsiblings, and they retained eight indoor servants. Her mother Sarah, died at her home on 10 August 1884, aged only 47 and by 1891 Alexander Crowe had moved to East Blatchington, near Seaford, accompanied by his sister-in-law, Catherine Cole, and he died on 2 September 1894. As Isabel Woodhouse, a member of the Ipswich Fine Art Club 1884-1890, exhibiting from 6 Queen's Terrace, Windsor in 1886, two oils 'Two-Decker Salute' and 'The Old Windmill', in 1887 'The Winter Walk', 'Brig Entering Port', 'Abandoned' and another, in 1888 'H.M.S. Mercury', 'H.M.S. Inconstant' and H.M. the Queen, at the Review 1845' and in 1888 from Pinewood, Stoke Poges, a watercolour 'H.M.S. Eurydice' and another. Isabel married at Windsor, Berkshire on 30 April 1889, Capt. John Gordon Wolrige-Gordon (1859-1925) when Isabel was the principal landowner and lady of the manor at Irnham. In 1891, they were living at Manydown, Somerset Road, Farnborough, Hampshire when 31-year-old John Gordon was a Justice of the Peace, and they had an 8-month-old son Gordon (1890-1939). Isabel Hervey Wolrige-Gordon died at 53 Queensgate, Kensington, London on 28 February 1911, aged 53. Her husband, a retired colonel in the army and Chief of the Clan MacLeod of Dunvegan Castle, Isle of Skye, died at Ellon, Scotland on 30 September 1925. Isabel's maiden name is sometimes given as Wodehouse or Woodehouse.