Life of a Lady who married beneath her

The couple lived at Warmsworth Hall and then at Cusworth Hall, in Doncaster, but Lady Isabella, or Her Ladyship, as she was intermittently known, found her life in the town to be one of mixed fortune.

Information about how the couple met is scarce.

William Henry Thomas, born in 1851, and educated at Eton later qualified as a barrister at Lincolns Inn. He also became a member of the junior Carlton Club. This was frequented by the landed gentry and aristocracy, and may have provided a meeting ground for William and male members of the Exeter family, who perhaps introduced him to Lady Isabella, born in 1853 at Burleigh House.

The Marquis of Exeter, despite knowing that William had no title, perhaps gave his consent to the marriage because the Thomas family was very wealthy, and secondly William was very well qualified and was likely, in due course, to obtain a title in his own right. The third, and probably most important reason, was that William was destined to inherit Cusworth Hall and all its estates on the death of the owner, his great uncle, Richard Heber Wrightson.

Lady Isabella and William were married in Stamford on 7 August, 1884. For a time they lived in Warmsworth Hall a ‘grace and favour’ residence.

After the death of Richard Heber Wrightson on September 12, 1891, aged 91, the Cusworth estates passed to William and he eventually took the surname of Battie-Wrightson, instead of Thomas, by Royal licence.

Initially, life went quite well for Lady Isabella and her family. When William became Sheriff of Yorkshire, Lady Isabella’s role was to accompany him to various functions and be in charge of house parties.

Lady Isabella’s presence in Doncaster allegedly caused some jealousy among the local country house fraternity, because nobody else in the vicinity had a title as high-ranking as that of her father.

Everything went well in Yorkshire for Lady Isabella until 28 April 1903, when her husband died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage, aged 47. While struggling to overcome her grief, run the respective estates, raise her two children and have some kind of social life herself, she was involved with a legal wrangle with her husband’s family.

This was due to a clause which stated that on William Henry Battie-Wrightson’s death, his son would inherit the estate only if he had reached the age of 21.

As Robert Cecil was only 15 at the time of his father’s death, Charles Freeman Thomas, William Henry’s brother, claimed that Lady Isabella had no right to remain at Cusworth and that she should surrender the estates to him.

In time, and after taking legal advice on the matter, Lady Isabella made an ‘out of court’ settlement of £20,000.

Lady Isabella became involved with the poor and unemployed and on several occasions provided nourishment by opening soup kitchens in Cusworth Hall grounds.

On Robert Cecil’s 21st birthday, August 24, 1909, Lady Isabella commissioned Harrods to organise an enormous feast. This not only celebrated his coming of age but the handing over to him of the Cusworth estates. These included extensive lands owned at Askern, Edlington, Warmsworth, Bentley, Hurworth Manor and County Durham. There were also two properties in London and a seaside winter home at St Leonards on Sea as well as securities and investments abroad.

Lady Isabella was less frequently seen at Cusworth and stayed in London or other properties belonging to the family.

With the outbreak of the First World War, Lady Isabella converted her Wothorpe villa into a hospital and called herself Commandant of the Villa Hospital Wothorpe.

On October 26 1917 she caught a chill, which developed into pneumonia. Two days later she died aged 64 and her body was returned to Cusworth and interred at Warmsworth cemetery alongside her husband.