1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fullerton, Lady Georgiana Charlotte

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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 11
Fullerton, Lady Georgiana Charlotte
21724931911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 11 — Fullerton, Lady Georgiana Charlotte

FULLERTON, LADY GEORGIANA CHARLOTTE (1812–1885), English novelist and philanthropist, youngest daughter of the 1st Earl Granville, was born at Tixall Hall in Staffordshire on the 23rd of September 1812. In 1833 she married Alexander George Fullerton, then an Irish officer in the guards. After living in Paris for some eight years she and her husband accompanied Lord Granville to Cannes and thence to Rome. In 1843 her husband entered the Roman Catholic church, and in the following year Lady Georgiana Fullerton published her first novel, Ellen Middleton, which attracted W. E. Gladstone’s attention in the English Review. In 1846 she entered the Roman Catholic church. The death of her only son in 1854 plunged her in grief, and she continued to wear mourning until the end of her life. In 1856 she became one of the third order of St Francis, and thenceforward devoted herself to charitable work. In conjunction with Miss Taylor she founded the religious community known as “The Poor Servants of the Mother of God Incarnate,” and she also took an active part in bringing to England the sisters of St Vincent of Paul. Her philanthropic work is described in Mrs Augustus Craven’s work Lady Georgiana Fullerton, sa vie et ses œuvres (Paris, 1888), which was translated into English by Henry James Coleridge. She died at Bournemouth on the 19th of January 1885. Among her other novels were Grantley Manor (1847), Lady Bird (1852), and Too Strange not to be True (1864).