LACON, Laura Louisa
Laura Louisa Lacon, sometimes Louisa Laura, was born at Ruthin, Denbighshire, Wales in 1847 and baptised at Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd on 3 May 1847, second daughter of the two children of Capt. Henry James Lacon (27 November 1810-15 May 1867), R.N., and his wife Caroline Louisa Bartlett née Roberts (1813-25 March 1882), who married at Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire on 9 July 1844. In 1861, Laura was a 14-year-old, living at Goldrood, Belstead Road, Ipswich with her parents, 50-year-old Henry, born Great Yarmouth, Norfolk and 44-year-old Caroline, born Stony Stratford, and sibling sister, 15-year-old Caroline Henrietta, and they retained six indoor staff. Her father died at Goldrood in 1867, having served in various ships in China Seas and in the Mediterranean. Caroline and Laura were members of the Ipswich Fine Art Club in 1876 and, together with her sister as the Misses Lacon, exhibited from The Goldrood, Ipswich in 1875 an oil 'Rome' and 'Hospenthal looking towards Parka Pass' and in 1876 'View of Via Sacra, from the Coliseum', 'St Mark's, Venice', 'Duomo of Murano, near Venice', 'View in Switzerland', 'Amalfi' and 'Albano'. Unlike her sister she does seem to have exhibited on her own account. The family local church was St Mary Stoke, Ipswich and Laura placed two gas standards with seven burners in the oak altar rails in memory of her mother. As Laura Louisa Lacon, she died at 15 Russell Street, Bath, Somerset on 8 April 1920, aged 73, she was unmarried.