Saturday, July 5, 2025

DR. BERNARD FINCH : A MAN DRIVEN BY LUST AND MONEY TURNED MURDERER

Excerpt pages 52 and 53

(The divorce attorney for Barbara Jean Finch, the murdered wife of Doctor Finch, Joseph T, Forno of Los Angeles, gave telephone interviews to several newspapers.)

***

"Dr Finch threated a number of times to take Mrs. Finch to the desert and kill her," he was quoted.  When asked about the status of the divorce action, he noted that the Finches had been scheduled to appear in conciliation court the next day to discuss their differences. "Dr. Finch had expressed a desire to reconcile with his wife. The divorce action was postponed. In the meantime, we asked for all of the community property and estimated it was worth $500,000 to $1,000.000." (Note that in 2025 dollars that is about five to eleven million dollars.)

"No fault divorce" was not to come for many years. A wife who could prove "fault," especially adultery, had a very good chance of getting virtually all of the community property.

Forno served  a restraining order on Dr. Finch. "We filed an order to show cause after he violently assaulted his wife on June 25 of this year, trying to force her into his automobile. Dr. Finch had threated his wife with a gun in the past also. She was in constant fear for her life.  This was preceded by an attempt on May 16 to strangle her at her home in West Covina." Forno continued. It was after this first assault Mrs. Finch decided to file for divorce."

Mrs. Finch had filed divorce papers, and at a June 11 hearing before Superior Court Judge Roger A. Pfaff, had requested and been granted $1,650 a month in alimony and child support. She was also given complete control of Dr. Finch's revenues from the clinic. All the revenues were deposited into her personal checking account.  Barbara Jean paid the clinic's bills with her personal checks. She also signed her husband's salary checks.

.... Interestingly, the most recent (malpractice) suit had been filed by James T. Pappa, former husband of Carole Tregoff Pappa.  Mr. Pappa filed his suit the Tuesday before the murder, claiming Cinch had negligently repaired a knee abnormality.

In my opinion, erratic driving, possibly alcoholism, unnecessary surgeries just to make money, and malpractice suits against him proved that the doctor was not necessarily rational or trustworthy and may have been driven by lust and money. However, California has been a community property state since no-fault divorce and by today's standards the Doctor's wife getting everything including future profits from his clinic would probably be considered extreme, unless perhaps he was considered incompetent.

How did 22 year old Carole Tregoff get involved in this?  Was it love?  I think OBSESSION!

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Wednesday, July 2, 2025

CAROLE TREGOFF : MISTRESS OF SOCIETY SURGEON BERNARD FINCH and CO-CONSPIRATOR IN THE MURDER OF HIS WIFE BARBARA FINCH

The book is old and the last copy available at a major city library. I'll be using "A Murder in West Covina," as well as numerous news stories to reveal this story of love gone wrong. The murder made headlines for three years back in the day and attracted Hollywood actors claiming they were doing research for future roles.

Of course we know that not all "love triangles," which is how the murder was typified in the press at the time, end in murder or scandal. (Some people choose to be in a triad.) Because it's clear that wife Barbara Jean Finch was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of her husband the doctor, before he murdered her, it's difficult for me to think of this as a "love triangle."

As a side, I first learned about this murder when I was reading around the journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, who was featured here in April 2023, titled "Pulitzer-Prize Nominated Reporter Dorothy Kilgallen* and Pop Singer Johnnie Ray : A Flaunted Unconventional Romance In The 1950's Before She Died." Kilgallen, married with children, a popular panelist on a television game show named What's My Line, first made her name as a rare woman journalist back in the 1950's and 1960's and she was very good at that too. (Her own death was suspicious and in recent years there has been an attempt to reopen the case.) In 1960 Kilgallen covered this trial.

CAROLE ANN TREGOFF
(1937 - ?) 

After being freed from prison, in May 1969, Carole lived under an assumed name.
I was unable to find an obituary for her. 

Image from Newspapers.com
clipped by jamesdhug

Our Mistress of the Month for July 2025 here at Mistress Manifesto, is Carole Tregoff, who modeled briefly and became the Mistress of a "society surgeon" Doctor Raymond Bernard "Bernie" Finch, who murdered his wife, Barbara Jean Finch.  Finch was arrested and charged with First Degree murder. Carole was arrested and charged the same. How innocent was she?

The murder occurred on July 18, 1959 when Carole was 22 old. Barbara had been shot dead, once in the back. Carol hid in the bushes and later drove all the way to Vegas alone, perhaps in a state of shock. (Bernard was 41 and his wife, Barbara, was 36.)

Bernard and Barbara had been married six years and both had been married before. Barbara had brought one child into the marriage she'd had with her first husband, Lyle Daugherty, and had another child with the doctor. A young woman from Sweden served as the children's nanny and was important to the testimony in the case.

In an interesting twist, in 1951 there had been accusations of a "wife swap." Bernard's high school sweetheart, Frances Simpson and he had married. Next door lived Lyle Daughterly and his wife - Barbara Jean.  It was Doctor Bernard Finch who delivered Barbara, who he would eventually marry, by caesarian, of the daughter who he'd become step-father to. Eventually Frances married Lyle. The two had said they only got involved after divorces but there was publicity that turned it into a sordid "wife swapping" ordeal. 

Carole Tregoff had also been married before and was known in Vegas as Mrs. James Pappa. Oddly, in some news articles she is identified as the doctor's "assistant." The day after the murder, detectives found the red haired, light skinned beauty, living in Vegas and working at The Sands hotel and casino as a waitress. Yes really! So Vegas was home for her, not West Covina; this is not an easy commute by driving. Asked where the doctor was, she said he was at her apartment. Soon after, he was arrested. Carole lied to protect Bernard - and herself. She claimed that he had been with her in Vegas for a long weekend and gave a rather detailed account of their doings.

Carole was asked if Bernard supported her financially (i.e. if she was his Mistress) to which she answered that he had given her money but never supported her. She said that she and Bernard had intended to divorce their spouses and remarry to each other. The two had been living together in Vegas, then called "shacking up." 

In subsequent testimony, Carole's stories didn't match. She claimed that she had moved to Vegas to avoid being called into the divorce action between Bernard and Barbara that May.

It turned out she hired a hitman to murder Barbara. He took the money.  He didn't do the deed.

Soon the trial would make headlines.

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* Re Dorothy Kilgallen : in 1960 she went to cover the trial of society surgeon Bernard Finch, accused of shooting his wife Barbara once in the back while his co-conspirator and mistress, Carole Tregoff cowered in a clump of bougainvillea. " The crime was s slapdash do-it- yourself job done after a hoodlum named Cody took payment for the hit from the lovers, lost his nerve, blew the money in Vegas and then lied to Finch about having done the murder.

You may be interested in :  

April 2023

PULITZER-PRIZE NOMINATED REPORTER DOROTHY KILGALLEN and  POP SINGER JOHNNIE RAY : A FLAUNTED UNCONVENTIONAL ROMANCE IN THE 1950's BEFORE SHE DIED

February 2017
EVELYN NESBIT : TEENAGE MISTRESS OF ARCHITECT STANFORD WHITE  and  WIFE OF HARRY K. THAW - MURDER SCANDAL


Sunday, June 29, 2025

LADY EMMA HAMILTON, SIR WILLIAM, HORATIO NELSON, and NELSON'S WIFE: THE HUSBAND ACCEPTED, NELSON FLAUNTED, NELSON'S WIFE MADE A BRAVE FACE BUT WEPT

1800-1801 Like most women she was afraid of dying in childbirth.

Lady Emma Hamilton, married to a much older man, became pregnant while having an affair with married Battle of the Nile war hero Horatio Nelson. Both celebrities and considered two of the sexiest people alive at the time, they traveled hundreds of miles in an entourage that included her husband, Sir William Hamilton and her mother, called "Mrs. Cadogan," and were feted by the rich and influential as they visited the fashionable places. However, retirement in London was the destination. Emma had lived in Naples for thirteen years and her husband was at the end of his career as a diplomat. Frequently toasted and reviled in the gossip media of the time, the fashionista and influencer could not avoid the fact that her pregnancy was known and no one thought her elderly husband could be the father.

Excerpt pages 254-255 : Every time they opened a newspaper, Sir William's family, friends, and ex-colleagues were shocked to see him represented as a cuckolded, bam-boozled, out-of-touch antiquarian. They were even more scandalized by his sanguine acceptance of the situation. Sir William ignored their complaints, perhaps because he thought them too concerned about whether he would leave his money to Emma.... William's motives in forgiving the affair were complex. He owned Nelson more than $2000 for expenses by complaining in front of her lover that she gambled too much and would make herself a pauper. He was also genuinely fond of Nelson; furthermore, he knew their friendship gave him social consequence.

Society commentators found Emma's behavior bewildering, although they hardly blinked when a man kept both mistress and wife (such as the setup at Devonshire House, where the duke lived with both his wife and Bess Foster, her friend and his mistress.*) Sir William excused his wife because he loved her, valued her companionship, and welcomed not having to be her sole support.  And, as he knew, his only alternative was being alone.

As her pregnancy advanced, Emma was often ill, even vomiting in front of Fanny, Nelson's wife. Nelson had taken to being unkind to Fanny, who was humiliated. Emma endured the censure of her royal and aristocratic friends who could not be associated with scandal, whatever their more liberal leanings or affection for her were. Her husband continued to travel with them. Emma arrived in London eight months pregnant. Nelson honorably decided to separate from his wife and gave Fanny half his income, which was very good of him since men were not required to give a wife they left anything.

Born in 1765, Emma was in her mid thirties when she gave birth on January 28,1801, with a doctor, midwife, and nurse to deliver her.  She had another girl and named her Horatia.  Nelson and his wife had been childless and he was a first time father at forty-three. She had not hidden this pregnancy as she had to do with her first.  Again the cartoonists and commentators had their fun.

Missy here: Emma's story continues with the Prince of Wales but within the limits of this blog and focus on her rise to becoming Lady Hamilton, I can only highly recommend you obtain and read a copy of Kate William's wonderfully written and researched book that has been the primary reference for this month's posts. Thank you for persisting with me as we learned more about her amazing rise out of dire poverty in the late 1700's.

Amy Lyon, aka Mrs. Emma Hart, and Lady Emma Hamilton, died in 1815 at age 49.

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*The relationship is portrayed in the film The Duchess. According to Wikipedia, "The Duchess: is a 2008 historical drama film directed by Saul Dibb, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jeffery Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jenson, based on the 1998 book Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman, about the late 18th century aristocrat Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire.

Friday, June 27, 2025

THE LADY EMMA HAMILTON YELLOW SHRUB ROSE

 

Image from Pixabay - artist Stux

The Lady Hamilton shrub rose is described by one website that sells the rose, David Austin Roses, like this:  Dark red buds with dashes of orange, open to chalice-shaped blooms of rich tangerine orange, with yellow-orange on the outside of the petals. They are held against very dark, bronzy green, polished leaves that slowly become dark green with age.  The flowers have a strong, delicious, fruity fragrance with hints of pear, grape, and citrus fruits....

There are three women who have been subjects here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO who have roses named after them.  

Do you know who the other two are?

Missy

Thursday, June 26, 2025

SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON ALLOWS HIS WIFE LADY EMMA HAMILTON AN AFFAIR WITH HORATIO NELSON, DUKE OF BRONTE : ANOTHER PREGNANCY AND SCANDAL

1798 - 1800ish

For now Emma, as Sir William Hamilton's wife, was a society woman, a celebrated hostess, and had the friendship of Queens, even if her position as a Lady was not equal. She was a fashion influencer at the time too and a celebrity. When Horatio Nelson, "The Hero of the Nile" needed to recover his health after battle, Emma had him stay with her and her husband in Naples and gave him a lavish fortieth birthday party where eight hundred Neopolitan dignitaries and other important, including English, guests attended and another thousand came for the dancing. 

Revolutions were occurring in Europe - not just the French - and shifting power was a threat to all the royals and aristocrats. Sir William was philosophical and invited Nelson to live with them, a great show of friendship meant to end the rumors. In fact, Sir William could not deny that his wife and Nelson were growing close and that he and his wife had taken to separate apartments and had become friends. 

When the French invaded Naples, once again Nelson prevailed and was credited with saving the city and restoring peace, for which Queen Maria Carolina was especially thankful to Sir William, Horatio Nelson, and Lady Emma Hamilton.  Nelson was created Duke of Bronte as his reward and Sir William, increasingly I'll, sought to end his Diplomatic service and return to England. Insiders knew that age was catching up with Sir William and his health was not good, as he suffered from digestive issues.

Her husband had been an English diplomat for thirty-seven years and wanted a sabbatical but was quickly replaced. The Queen, Lady and Sir William Hamilton, Nelson, and their entourage, left Naples as more conflicts endangered them and Napoleon and his army's approached, threatening to take over their territories and rule over them. They went from Germany to Hungary, where they were feted by Prince Esterhazy and Emma entertained by singing along with the music of the composer, Haydn, to Czechoslovakia. The travel was escape as well as vacation.

Considered to be two of the sexiest people alive, gossips believed that Emma and Horatio were having an affair. By early 1800, they most certainly were. Thirteen years into her life in Naples, Emma became pregnant and then there was no denying it. She had risked loosing everything she had gained by being with him and had unprotected sex with a man she was not married to. Emma began to show pregnant and had to know that by the laws of the 18th century, the child would belong to her husband legally. Nelson was a married man too.


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Monday, June 23, 2025

EMMA WAS NOT SHY ABOUT LETTING SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON KNOW SHE WANTED TO MARRY HIM and AT LAST SHE BECAME LADY EMMA HAMILTON

Emma did not shyly wait around for a proposal like an 18th century woman was supposed to do. She told Sir William Hamilton that she loved him and wanted to marry him. Famous now as a beauty, a model, a dancer - and an intellect - faithful and loyal to him, she pledged to continue to make him happy.

While Sir William denied to all to his friends - who asked for the truth - that he had married her, there were those who believed he already had. By 1790 it was the gossip in fashionable London that the Ambassador to Naples and his mistress were about to arrive. It was a bit of the kind of scandal people loved. Those of his rank imagined that he was not her sexual partner, perhaps because he was, in fact, a senior. So it went with the English.

However, those of his friends who lived in Naples and had seen them as a couple thought otherwise. They encouraged him to marry Emma. Even the Queen Maria Carolina of Naples and the Two Sicilies encouraged marriage.

Emma traveled England with Sir William and his entourage. Her mother was part of the entourage but the daughter she had been forced to send away by Charles Greville, now nine years old, went unvisited by Emma. (Instead her mother, Mary, called Mrs. Cadogan, went.)

His family had a reason to discourage a marriage besides Emma's background and that was that they wanted his estate intact to inherit it. He claimed her to have made him extremely happy. He suggested that they would be "engaged for life" but proudly seeing how popular she was, he began to reconsider. Ultimately, and by my way of thinking, much to his credit, the man began to follow his heart.

Excerpt page 158 : Sir William confessed to his friends that he had decided to "make an honest Woman of her." He promised that he would never set her above visiting female aristocrats by allowing her to present them to Maria Carolina. Declaring himself entirely confident about the future, he cheerfully knocked two years off Emma's age. He wrote to his friend, Georgiana, Countess Spencer, mother of the Duchess of Devonshire:

A man of 60 intending to marry a beautiful young Woman of 24 ad whose character on her first onset of life will not bear a severe scrutiny, seems to be a very imprudent step, and so it certainly would be 99 times in a 100, but I flatter myself I am not deceived in Emma's [resent character --- We have lived together five years and a half, and not a day has passed without her having testified her true repentance for the past.

On August 28, Sir William attended court at Windsor and gained the king's consent to the marriage. Two days before her marriage, she sat for artist George Romney for the last time.  The artist had created dozens of paintings of Emma, but for the first time he wrote Lady Hamilton rather than Mrs. Emma Hart in his record of models who sat for him.

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Saturday, June 21, 2025

EMMA, MISTRESS OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON, DEVELOPS HER PERFORMANCE CALLED "THE ATTITUDES" BASED ON ANTIQUITY : SHE AIMS TO MARRY SIR WILLIAM

1787

Amy Lyon, born into the poorest of the poor, because her mother was a Mistress, was able to develop into a beauty, but her rough and bumpy life included unpaid servitude, a bout with the theatre, work as a tavern prostitute, and becoming the Mistress of Honorable Charles Greville who grew bored of her. She bore a child at sixteen to Greville who was sent away to be raised, but was passed along to his relative, the older man, Sir William Hamilton. Hamilton had the beautiful young woman model for painters, sculptors, and cameo makers, and was proud of her progress as a singer and dancer, as well as an increasingly cultured and sophisticated entertainer at his dinner parties in Naples. He wowed his guests with a spectacle. Emma doing her Attitudes, which she modeled on the paintings she saw in Pompeii and antiquities being sold in Naples.

Excerpt pages 140-141 : ... When they were all assembled, he called them to hush and servants snuffed a few of the candles.  In the gloom, they could just catch the sight of a female figure draped in white, her dark hair flowing around her shoulders.  As she came closer, they recognized Mrs. Hart, Sir William's pretty, witty mistress, who had been laughing at all their jokes, flushed with gaiety, entertaining them with anecdotes about England. But now she was pale and ethereally composed. Taking up the shawls that lay at her feet, she began to swathe them around her, to kneel, sit, crouch, and dance. They quickly realized she was imitating the postures of figures from classical myth. First she pulled the shawls over her like a veil and became Niobe, weeping for the loss of her children; then using them to make a cape, she was Medea, poised with a dagger, about to stab. Then she pulled the shawls around her into seductive shapes, becoming Cleopatra, reclining for her Mark Antony. ...

She combined her dance training and her modeling at the Temple of Health and for Romney with influences she collected in Naples to create her Attitudes, an extraordinary fusion of eightieth-century dance with classical costumes and references, and a truly innovative art form.

THIS IMAGE IS FROM THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ART - UNITED STATES

The Attitude of Lady Hamilton 1791
Pietro Antonio Novelli - artist

After she showed Goethe her performance in 1787 word got out that he loved it and hundreds came to see Emma perform. She was twenty-two at the time and for the next thirty years she was asked to perform them. For the next few years she gained in confidence in all ways, as a performer, entertainer, hostess, and Mistress, one who was determined to make Sir William Hamilton marry her.  She obviously succeeded in doing so, as she comes to us as Lady Emma Hamilton.  As I read Author Kate Williams' wonderful biography of the woman who started out life as Amy Lyon, I'm rooting for her.

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Thursday, June 19, 2025

"MRS. EMMA HART'S" EXTRAVAGENT HOLIDAY IN NAPLES : EMMA IS SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON's NEW HOBBY and SHE LEARNS THE TRUTH THAT GREVILLE IS OVER HER

1786

Naples was the third largest city in Europe after London and Paris and a playground for the rich. There were glamorous parties, operas, exclusive shopping areas and amazing cuisine. A sort of boom town, it was also considered to be built quickly, with gorgeous but controversially colorfully painted architecture. Author Kate Williams compares it to an "eighteenth century Las Vegas" also because people gambled stayed up all night, drank, and womanized. It was a place to let go and get loose, to swim nude or forgo stiff protocols. Emma became Sir William's new hobby, showering her with gifts including a new wardrobe and a horse, and showing her off. However she continued to write to Greville, as though she were only aware of being on a vacation.

Excerpt page 127 : In July, Emma wrote to Greville, eager to share the excitement of her summer holiday.  They had visited Pompeii and Posillipo and planned to sail to the islands of Ischia and Capri.  She has been been bathing daily and her 'irruptions" were gone, leaving her, as she claims, "remarkably fair." Sir William had invited every artist and sculptor in Naples (apart from Mrs. Damer*) to portray her.  One, possibly Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, was painting her in a "Bacchante setting, in a turban, a Turkish dress," and she was modeling for another in blue silk gown and a black feathered hat. The young Swiss-German Angelica Kauffman, and two others planned to paint her, and the cameo maker Marchmont would soon carve her head into a stone that could be set into a ring.  Sir William already had five portraits, and he had asked for more from Romney.


Finally in August, Greville told the truth and she was shattered and both admonished him and begged him to take her back. He urged her to be Sir William Hamilton's mistress. Six months later she was still refusing to do so. She was faithful to Greville, her first lover. (The men she had sex with as a sex worker were not.)

Excerpt page 129 : Emma could not believe his hypocrisy. Exploited from the age of fourteen, she had thought that Greville had saved her, and she had grown proud of her hard-won respectability.  As she knew, mistresses tended to be passed on to progressively poorer protectors, and she expected that Sir William would keep her for no longer than a year and then pass her on.

But Sir William also proved to be a good shoulder to cry on. And by Christmas their relationship was an affair. Her letters were full of love and lust for him. He forgot his plan to also have her as a temporary mistress. She found herself more secure than ever but he, like Greville, aimed to make her over and improve her. Emma learned to sing, dance, and play the harpsichord and guitar and her coaches were those who taught the highest in society.
She was often asked to sing at dinners and even received an offer to sing at the opera in Madrid. Exposed to his extensive library of English literature, she read and then began to try to learn Italian. Sir William was proud of her.

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*Mrs. Damer was the sculptress who Sir William Hamilton was considering marrying after the death of his wife and whom Emma met when she first visited with Sir William while with the Honorable Charles Greville.

Monday, June 16, 2025

AMY LYON AKA "MRS. EMMA HART" AS THE MISTRESS OF HONORABLE CHARLES GREVILLE BECOMES THE MISTESS OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON

And then she met the one... 

But it did not start out as expected.

Amy Lyon had accepted to be called Mrs. Emma Hart while the Mistress of Charles Greville, who wanted to remake her into a meeker and more conservative woman - the "virtuous housewife" which meant repressing her true self and acting.  He had banished the daughter she bore with another man as a sixteen year old, rented her a house on the outskirts of London and installed her mother to keep her company.  Emma aimed to please him and keep his patronage and told him he made her happy and that she loved him; maybe she did. 

Greville had status in English society as a second son in the historical Warwick family but he had not attracted a wife who would bring her inheritance into the marriage. Perhaps for a time he thought that being known to have a Mistress might give him a desirable reputation among men. But his search for a wife did not end with having Emma and nor did it prevent him from having an affair with Elizabeth, Lady Craven. He was out of love for Emma and sought to find a way to send her on her way without drama.

The newly widowed Sir William Hamilton was a relative that Greville wished to court for money.  He fifty-five years old - much older than Emma - and as the fourth and youngest son of Lord Archibald Hamilton, worked as a diplomat assigned top Naples. He came to visit and they delighted each other but Lord Hamilton knew that Greville would soon get rid of Emma. Emma was ignorant of Greville's plans and continued to tell the man that she missed him and belonged to him and could only go so far in entertaining Hamilton.

Excerpt page 103 : Emma's new friend had grown up in the royal court with the future King George III.  His mother, Lady Jane Hamilton, had been the Mistress of Frederick, Prince of Wales, from about 1736 until 1745.  Frederick appointed her his wife's lady of the bedchamber.  Then, dizzy with lust, he also made her the queen's Mistress of the robes - not even the poor queen;s clothes were free from her rival's claws.  Lady Jane possessed the absolute sway over Frederick and his family thought her son's earl;y life.  Sir William called King George his foster brother, boasting that "my Mother reared us and the same nurse suckled us.  With this he hinted what many suspected: he was the Prince of Wales's son....


Greville negotiated for Sir William Hamilton to take on Emma.  He was calculating.  He claimed that having a Mistress was preventing him a good marriage, that he admired her and was attracted to her but that she was in love with Sir William. He said she had become obedient and of "good humor" and that considering all the advantages she might bring into a relationship, she was not one to demand a man spend on her. By pushing his lover Emma on Hamilton, he reasoned he was not abandoning her and she accepted the opportunity to travel and visit with Hamilton without knowing.  It took him two years to move Emma and her mother on, beginning with six weeks of tourist travel.

1786

Avoiding the problems in France that would result a couple years later in the French Revolution, they traveled to Geneva first and then Naples where the mother and daughter were to live at Palazzo Sessa, Hamilton's estate. Emma turned twenty-one.  Also there was Mrs. Anne Damer, a sculptress who Sir William Hamilton was thinking of marrying and twice Emma's age.  Hamilton quickly decided in favor of Emma, and he began to treat her like a princess but began to treat her mother like a servant.

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Wednesday, June 11, 2025

PREGNANT EMMA LYON - THE FUTURE LADY HAMILTON - WAS THROWN TO THE STREET and THE HONORABLE CHARLES GREVILLE RESCUED HER - TEMPORARILY

 

She was afraid... Maybe she had not used contraception or he had not wanted her to or she was unlucky. Or maybe she had hoped to make Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh give her a more formal arrangement or maybe even marry, her for it was not unheard of that a powerful or rich man would take a woman such as herself to be a wife. Harry did pay Madam Kelly to release her from any contract and set her up in one of many of the houses he owned in London. But she kept her pregnancy a secret for three months. Now that she was officially kept, she would only be able to go out on the town with a female chaperone or Sir Harry himself... But he was not much interested in visiting with her and was a no show while she waited.  Secretly, he was going broke... Emma became desperate and clingy when she did see Sir Harry and he was furious when she told him the truth. She was sixteen years old and Harry put her out, abandoning her. She had to go back to being an "independent companion." As her pregnancy advanced she increasingly appealed to Charles Greville to take her as his Mistress and be her savior.

Still hoping the father of her child, unmarried as he was, would change his mind and at least support her through the pregnancy, Emma took to being the tragic heroine of her own drama. Greville took to being the one who owed nothing and had all the power. He wanted her only on his own terms which meant that she be loyal and faithful only to him and sever contact with any old lovers and give up the life of an escort and prostitute. When she finally went to Greville, a servant took her to a "laying in house" where she was secreted to have the baby. 

Childbirth killed one woman in ten in those days but Emma made it through the birth to a daughter she also named Emma...

Excerpt page 80 : After birth, well-off women relaxed in their rooms, cosseted by the servants, showing off the new arrival to visitors while languidly sipping gruel tea, a special hot spiced wine mixture called caudal.  Emma, however, had to return to Greville.  Her daughter was boarded with a wet nurse, probably near the laying-in house. Greville aimed to ensure she would have few opportunities to journey into town and visit her child.  he sent little Emma off to her great-grandmother in Hawarden as soon as possible. Emma knew what was expected of her; she had to pretend that her pregnancy never happened.  Within a week or so she was traveling in a coach to a new home in Paddington, West London. There, she began to reinvent herself. Amy Lyon, the flamboyant would-be actress and extroverted girl about town, became Mrs. Emma Hart, just arrived from Chester, Charles Greville's quiet and terribly shy new Mistress.

In a village on the rural outskirts of London, Greville rented Emma a small house where she was to be retired and become exclusively his.  Her mother Mary, only in her late 30's herself, was already there to live with her. Not only was Emma to go by Mrs. Hart, but her mother was to assume the name of Mrs. Cadogan. Greville had not the money or standing of Sir Harry but he was still a second son of Lord Brooke, who was made Earl of Warwick in 1759, and he still had the reputation of a man who spent money on women. He had been unable to attract a wife, especially not a wife who would bring money into the marriage from her family. He aimed to reform or inhibit or control Emma.

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Saturday, June 7, 2025

MADAM KELLY'S BROTHEL ATTRACTED ACTRESSES and POWERFUL MEN : EMMA DIDN'T STAY LONG : THE FIFTEEN YEAR OLD'S TEMPORARY FORAY WITH TWENTY-SIX YEAR OLD SIR HARRY FETHERSTONHAUGH

1780ish.

Madam Kelly had been a prostitute herself, as young as the age of ten when she started. She became a Madam who made her prostitutes who worked at her brothel go into debt to her by supplying them fabulous clothes and expensive jewelry and she had no mercy in collecting money owed her. Aspiring actresses and other women who were accepted to work there had their chance to earn far more money than they could anywhere else but that was not always the ultimate goal. Some of them became the Mistresses of these powerful men. But to do so, a man had to "hire her out," pay off the clothes, and ultimately pay off the contract the prostitute had with Madam Kelly.

Excerpt page 68 : Emma was beginning to make friends, and she soon found a protector.  Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh, a spoiled young squire, was characterized by gossip columns as the brothel regular "Sire Harry Flagellum" and "The Sporting Lover." Kelly listed him as Baron Harry Flagellum in a daybook for another of her brothels. He had become interested in Emma and asked to take her for a long-term hire at his house, Uppark, to entertain him and his friends  He would have had to shell out a lot of cash to Kelly to cover Emma's "debts" and the madam's loss of earnings, and he had to agree to buy her clothes.  Many girls, after being rented out, became kept mistresses.  Kelly expected to be able to extract an even larger amount when Fetherstonhaugh demanded Emma's ultimate release.

Emma hoped that Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh might be her escape. In her year or so at Kelly's, Emma had found out about glamour and the kind of tricks to tempt a man's passion, and she had also learned to rely on herself and to hide her emotional needs. Her hard, brilliant exterior hid a secret longing for a man to cherish her, who she could believe loved her for herself.


As I read these passages in Kate William's book about Emma Hamilton, and the women at Madam Kelly, though hundreds of years passed to the days of Hollywood Madam, Heidi Fleiss, I'm reminded of Heidi because she bragged at how well paid and beautiful the women who worked for her as prostitutes were. 

Excerpt page 69 : Emma found herself on long-term hire to a stag party set to last the entire summer....  Fifteen year old Miss Lyon was hired to entertain the host and his guests, serve at dinner, dance, and smile.  She meant to work hard, confident that she would persuade Sir Harry to take her as his long-term mistress. 

Sir Harry was only twenty-six years old. He was good looking, a charming bad boy who was not much interested in study but rather drinking and hunting. Some called him effeminate and author Kate Williams uses the term fluffy headed.  He lived beyond his means and troubled his family.  His house was beautiful and rich and his estate workers were industrious.  Emma had her own cottage and exposed to this level of wealth unlike ever before. Servants - more than one hundred - worked tirelessly to keep it up. Though officially she was hired as a Lady's Maid, the other servants found reason to be jealous and resentful of her position.

In order to be more pleasing to Sir Harry, Emma, still called Emma Lyon, learned to ride horses and became an excellent side-saddle equestrian who accompanied him on the hunt.
After the hunt the men would become boisterous and gluttonous. She would dance for them and sing, giving a performance but feeling personally neglected by Harry.

Emma set her sights on an older, poorer man, Charles Greville, second son of Earl of Warwick and MP for Warwick, in the Midlands, who hated hunting, thirty-two, still unmarried, and not the life of any party.

Unfortunately, Emma's boredom with Harry and unhappiness with her life was further complicated by her pregnancy. Sir Harry was the father.

C 2025 Mistress Manifesto - BlogSpot All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights



Thursday, June 5, 2025

A START IN THE THEATRE : ACTRESS JANE POWELL INFLUENCED THIRTEEN YEAR OLD EMMA HAMILTON TO DRURY LANE : PORTRAIT MODEL EMMA IS HIRED BY THE TEMPLE OF HEALTH

1778-1779ish

While a servant in London for the Budd's, the thirteen year old Emma Hamilton met another servant - Jane Powell - who wanted to be an actress and would eventually succeed as one; the surname Powell came to her in marriage. Jane had also been fatherless and the two became best friends. Jane's big break in the theatre came after she attracted a rich patron who arranged for her to graduate from the minor roles she had accomplished on her own. Therefor, she, like Mary Lyon, Emma's mother, had the benefit of being a Mistress. The servant girls enjoyed free events such as parades and fairs and the parties that emerged and they were both fired from the Budd's after staying out all night. There was no security at all in being a servant girl. Meanwhile it is likely that Emma had to grow up fast and had probably lost her virginity as a twelve year old.

Excerpt page 39: Thirteen year old Emma already had the energy, beauty, and self-confidence that would carry her far, but such qualities had a darker underside - an addiction to glamour, a hot temper, and a desire to please by winning attention. There was no way that her life of drudgery could continue: she was too pretty and ambitious. On leaving the Budds, equipped only with a few dresses and one or two trinkets from admirers, Emma headed straight for the Drury Lane theater in Covent Garden, the most sensational spectacle in London. 


Emma didn't start as an actress at Drury Lane. She was a dresser, a maid, carried props - a servant for an actress, though she might have been used in a crowd scene or two.

In the eighteenth century in London, it's estimated one woman in eight worked as a prostitute. Prostitutes were part of the party around the theater scene. The price range for sexual services ranged from a few 18th century cents to thousands of dollars. Emma could not have been innocent of this fact. Author Kate William's description of the prostitution scene is one of street and tavern. It's implied that Emma may have been one of them as a teenager. 

Painters also went looking for models and as it turned out, she was considered a perfect English beauty.

Excerpt page 52: ... She was snatched up by the two greatest portrait painters of the time: bitter rivals George Romney and Joshua Reynolds. Sir Joshua, foremost portrait painter of the age and president of the Royal Academy from 1768 to 1782, was well known for hunting in the brothels of Covent Garden for models, and it seems that he found Emma, perhaps before Romney. His Cupid Unfastening the Girdle of Venus shows a dark-haired, pale-skinned model who looks very much like Emma, her bosom exposed, wearing an almost transparent dress, languishing in bed while Cupid unties her sash... .... Emma appears to have modeled for one of Reynold's greatest paintings, Thais.... Thais being the Mistress of Alexander the Great...

The painting was such a sensation that the public demanded to know who the model was and was identified as "Miss Emily"... Emily hardly the typical name for a prostitute, the name implied a higher status. There is a possibility that already she was a Mistress, to Honorable Charles Greville. It was said that she had sat for the painting at his request.

At the time, according to author Kate Williams, modeling was undesirable work and possibly paid worse than prostitution. Artists were not especially kind to models and there were other painters and paintings which looked a lot like Emma. 

As a result of her new found fame of sorts, Emma got a new gig. James Graham, a London entrepreneur, sex therapist, and showman, who believed in "the power of electricity" hired her for his Temple of Health. The spectacle at his townhouse, where people went for a cure, included electrical shocks, fireworks and explosions, music, and, also glamour girls in flimsy white dresses who danced around the treatment bed. Dancing at the temple is something Emma never denied as she did other suggestions once she was a Mistress to aristocratic men. The Temple featured a cure for infertility and Graham is credited with suggesting that a woman needed to orgasm to become pregnant at a time when many women saw sex as dutiful and only for procreation.

The Temple of Health itself attracted not just husbands and wives, but men and their mistresses. It might have become one more place of low paid prostitution. Emma quickly moved on to a brothel, Madame Kelly's, which was London's most exclusive.

C 2025 Mistress Manifesto - BlogSpot All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

Monday, June 2, 2025

EMMA HAMILTON (AMY LYON) : HER MISTRESS MOM PROVIDED A BETTER LIFE FOR THE BOTH OF THEM : EMMA GREATLY EXCEEDED ALL EXPECTATIONS FOR SOMEONE BORN TO BE A DOMESTIC SERVANT


England's Mistress
is a beautifully written book by Kate Williams that was a delight to read, beginning with the descriptions of life in 18th century England for the poorest of the poor. I began to see the sights and smell the smells.

As I read the story of Emma Hamilton, I was reminded that she had much in common with other women - Courtesans and Mistresses - who rose up from humble or even devastating beginnings through beauty and intellect, to a more adventurous and unconventional life. I'm also reminded that it was and is possible to be shunned from acceptable society but never the less eventually prevail to be esteemed by it and also, finally, that a hard past doesn't excluded someone from love and marriage.

As I read the books about women's lives in previous centuries, I'm also glad that we women have more choices. Overall, we have been able to be more independent, to become educated, to volunteer, to hold jobs and have careers, to own our own money and property, to choose to be unmarried or not ... 

EMMA HAMILTON 
Amy Lyon 
Mrs. Emma Hart
Lady Emma Hamilton

1765 - 1815

Born into extreme poverty in the coal mining village not far from Liverpool, Amy Lyon had one great advantage - her mother Mary. Though her husband, Amy's father, died when Amy was an infant, somehow Mary provided for her daughter without remarriage. There was some mysterious scandal associated with Amy's father's death - alcohol poisoning or suicide perhaps, maybe mining accident or murder. Or perhaps the scandal was that Mary had become a  Mistress. After all, her mother was widowed at only twenty- two and Amy was fatherless - by those days standards, an orphan. 

Neither mother or daughter lived up to the expectations of suspicious and hateful neighbors. Were they witches? Mary moved the two of them in with relatives who weren't happy about it and navigated a class structure that intended to keep people in the position of their birth. The story was that Mary was Mistress to Sir John Glynne or Lord Halifax but that would be some stretch. It was probably one of Glynne's estate employees who kept Mary, someone who provided her with little extras.

Excerpts pages 18 - 19 : Mary was surely lover to a man with money for a sustained period of time, perhaps throughout Emma's childhood. It is unlikely that Emma survived on potatoes and old cheese that made up the diet of her neighbors. Like all country people, Hawarden villagers were stunted and sunken- eyed through malnutrition. They suffered from rickets, and their hair, teeth, and skin betrayed their lack of protein. Emma grew tall, strong, and beautiful, with a thick mane of hair and strong white teeth. She had sparking eyes, clear skin, voluptuous good health, and bounding energy. In the 1760's and 1770's, England was racked with famines, a smallpox epidemic, and sweeping influenza, but Emma appears to have suffered no severe childhood illnesses. Thomas Pettigrew, one of Lord Nelson's early biographers (Lord Nelson being important to Emma's story...) who knew Emma's London employer, Dr. Budd, noted that when she worked as a servant she had no "means to cultivate her intellectual faculties," so she must have learned to read, write, and do simple addition as a child. Somehow, Mary found money that protected Emma from the worst of village hardship and helped her grow into a beauty.


After Sir John Glynne's death, perhaps because the estate employees had to move on, Mary and Emma traveled to London. Emma was twelve years old, the age poor girls then became domestic servants, and she obtained employment with Dr. Honorotus Leigh Thomas. She was likely an unpaid child laborer and may have done hard physical labor such as hauling coal, pumping water, and splitting firewood as she was at the very bottom of servility.

Excerpts: page 21 and 22 : ... Within a few months, the hands of most young maids were scarred with burns, and the most common cause of death for eighteenth century girls was burns or scalds.... Families such as the Thomases burned over a ton of coal every six weeks, and the walls, floors, ceilings, and furniture needed regular scrubbing to remove the black dust. It could take a whole day to clean a room properly... Worst of all, like all girls in her position, Emma had to feign servility and respectful admiration for her employers ...

Perhaps the worst plight of servant girls was what we call sexual harassment and rape today.

 
Excerpt page 22 : Masters saw their young servants as easy prey. Since most, like Emma, spent much of their day cleaning isolated rooms alone, they were easy to trap and grope.  At night there was even more opportunity, for they slept in unlocked rooms or on the floor.  The master usually beat the servants (women were not legally permitted to punish them) and often backed up his physical violence with harassment - thinking it a good way to keep the girls in check...  The typical eighteenth century man simply seduced his servants and fired them when he was bored of them.

Emma found herself unemployed after a few months with the Thomases and perhaps it was only that she could not keep up with the work. At the time servant girls were supposedly ones to fall in love with their masters (despite such treatment*) and to live on fantasies of becoming married. In Emma's case, escape to London, 180 miles south, was her dream and the coach ride was probably only possible because her mother gave her the fair. This ride in itself would have been rough, extremely uncomfortable, and shared with others. Hundreds came to London with hopes of a better life every day. There was an anti-immigrant sentiment and many were soon locked up into jails through innocent though there were criminals among them. Girls were procured for brothels by "motherly" types. Luckily Emma was hired by a middle class couple, the Budd's, who might have, like many of their status, hoped a country girl would be more easily manageable and accept lower or no pay. Servants for aristocrats were hired only through personal recommendations.

London was teeming with people who were desperate. It was filthy, and often on fire. London also had the royal, the rich; exclusive shopping and luxury living. So the new townhouse owned by the Budds and implied better status of servitude must have been a relief. But Emma was not to remain there for long and would bounce around from employers and brothels.

Stick with me as the story of this Mistress of the Month, who became beloved in England's late 18th century, as I unfold her story!

C 2025 Mistress Manifesto - BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

* My opinion as this statement by the author leads me to think the girls were masochists. 

If interested in Mistresses of British or English aristocrats or royals, click on tabs such as London, or Royal Mistresses!

You may also be interested in:

October 2023
MARIA LACZYNSKA - WALEWSKA : MARRIED POLISH MISTRESS OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE  FROM 1806 TO 1810  (They had a son.)

February 2016
ISADORA DUNCAN
Mother of Modern Dance and Mistress of Paris Singer; She Did Positive Affirmations to Attract a Wealthy Patron

Friday, May 23, 2025

"MRS. SMITH" ON MICKEY ROONEY'S LETTERS TO HER : HE WAS OPEN AND HONEST : SHE MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE ONLY WOMAN IN HIS LIFE HE COULD TRUST LIKE THAT

Excerpt:  Mickey was very open in his letters to Smith, who read us some passages from his correspondence with her.  Not love letters per se, they were filled with recollections and sometimes anger, but always Mickey in his own, heretofore unpublished words:

March 1950: She (Martha Vickers) could hardly stand up when I came home.  After I'm at the studio all day, and the kid is there, I don't need to be a nanny.
 
June 1958: referring to Barbara Ann and specifically to her attempted suicide by an overdose of pills; "Thanks for your concern.  She is all right. I just don't want to get trapped again.  They use my house as if it's their house to party.

February 1966: "I appreciate both of your calls and help.  I appreciate 'Mr. Smith's kind of assistance...  This has been the biggest nightmare and it never seems to end... I'd like to meet sometime soon... Please call me... I miss being close to you - I can still smell your scent.

"I think I saw a side of Mickey that he revealed to no one else," Smith said. "He was very romantic, kind; he had a very nostalgic sense; and I was able to experiment sexually with him that I couldn't with my husband.  He was very athletic.  Very.  He was quite inventive..."

She continued; "Also, we lent him money over the years, and much of it was never repaid.  We just chalked it up to Mickey.  He did give Mr. Smith his start."

The years wore on, but Mickey continued to regard Mrs. Smith as his close confidant, revealing to her his disappointment that the life he had enjoyed when they first met in the 1940's was gone and that age had caught up with him.  They stopped seeing each other when he was in his nineties, even though they were still writing.  She told us that she attempted to contact Mickey just before his death.

"While we were in some communication, I was virtually locked out of his life after all the problems," she said.  "It was as if the family crying for him had put a wall up between Mickey and the outside world. I tried several times but was thwarted each time.  Just before his death, I attempted to send a car for him to bring him back to our house.  I believe it was his daughter-in-law that said that he was not interested.  I cannot believe that for one minute.  At no time had MIck ever told me about abuse or anything like that.  I learned about that on the news.  He always told me how content he was.:

In one letter to Smith, Mickey wrote, "As always, I miss you my dear.  As we get older, I begin to forget this or that. But don't think for a minute that I ever forget about us...."


Mrs, Smith heard about Mickey Rooney's death on the news.

"I was crestfallen.  My heart broke.  I remember all of our good times, our closeness, our being intimate for over sixty years.  I felt I lost a piece of myself with his death."

Notes: These excerpts are found in pages 480 and 481.  Rooney died in 2014 and for all his drama he was ninety-four years old.  He was buried in Hollywood Forever cemetery.