In anticipation of Catherine Ostler’s talk ‘The Age of Beauty: What can we learn from the Georgians?’ Collections Curator Tessa Kilgarriff reflects on one of Chiswick’s most famous inhabitants.

Georgiana Cavendish (née Spencer), Duchess of Devonshire (1757–1806) was described by her contemporaries as ‘a phenomenon’ and a ‘constant charm’ – she lived a life of extremes which began with her marriage, aged 17, to William Cavendish, 5^th Duke of Devonshire (1748 –1811) in 1774. The union was immediately an unhappy one as husband and wife had deeply contrasting personalities. Georgiana was creative, passionate and outgoing while her husband was an impassive and sometimes opaque figure.

After suffering many miscarriages, Georgiana threw herself into other pursuits: she wrote a novel, became a passionate advocate and campaigner for the whig party and entered into a complex romantic relationship with Lady Elizabeth Foster, who was also her husband’s mistress. Her status, intelligence and beauty gave her access to a fashionable set of friends, including playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan and the Prince of Wales. She was also an extravagant spender and gambler in this period, and started to run up debts that lasted her lifetime. Georgiana and the 5^th Duke did eventually have three children of their own: Lady Georgiana Cavendish (1783–1858), known as Little G; Lady Harriet Cavendish (1785–1862), known as Hary-O; and William George Spencer Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington (1790–1858), known as Hart. Around 1789 Georgiana began an affair with the whig politician Charles Grey (1764–1845). In 1791 she became pregnant with his child and was exiled to Europe where she gave birth to Eliza Courtney (1792–1859) who was brought up by Grey’s parents.

Prior to her affair with Grey, Georgiana and her husband had started an ambitious scheme of building work at Chiswick. Knocking down the old Jacobean house to expand Lord Burlington’s villa with two spacious wings. These additions completely transformed the architectural character of the original villa and made it into a substantial country home. The interiors of the newly extended Chiswick remained unfinished until Georgiana returned from European exile in 1793. She then took the reigns of the project and was responsible for re-hanging the paintings, ordering new furniture and china, and installing book and display cases for her collections of literature, shells and minerals.

Once she had created a comfortable and elegant home exactly to her taste, Chiswick became Georgiana’s sanctuary and a family hub. Chiswick was a place for Georgiana to escape the city and her anxieties – she famously called it her ‘earthly paradise’ and used the house often up until her death in 1806.