excuse me while I geek out historically over here

[topaz119]

Today's Fun Thing I Learned On The Internets:

Lady Sally Jersey--the vivacious patroness of Almack's, who is all but indispensable in any Regency novel worth its salt, nicknamed The Silence for how she never, EVER shut up?--was also the senior partner at Child's Bank, one of the largest and richest private banks in England. Her grandfather left her, specifically, controlling interest in the bank and she assumed that responsibility when she turned 21 and kept it until she died. Her. Not her husband, not her father. Her.

Holy crap, I wish I'd known that when I was writing An Uncommon Season last year--I would have fucking loved to have used Child's rather than Hoares for everyone's banking needs, what an extra spin that could put on things... I'd sort of casually picked her to be the Dowager Countess's favorite amid the society ladies, but knowing this now opens up all kinds of possibilities of who knew where Jeff's income was coming from and how that could fit into rehabilitating his public character...

No, really: damn, I wish I'd known this 18 months ago... ::mourns for lost opportunities::

At the very least, my unwritten canon is now that Mary-Louise sends all her money through Childs and quite possibly consults with its senior partner on the financial matters necessary to running a successful gaming hell. (Or no, actually, now that I've read further, she possibly banked with Coutts, which, it turns out, was also run by a woman, a former actress who'd married Mr. Coutts and been left the bank in lieu of his daughters and who then married the Duke of St Albans---I think she has more in common with Mary-Louise than Lady Jersey, but again who knew?)


Sorry, carry on with your lovely Fridays!

Comments

[mdlaw.livejournal.com]

When you get to the real history, it's pretty amazing. m :)

[topaz119.livejournal.com]

I had a really good time researching for that Big Bang last year--I kept getting off on side tracks and having to reel myself back in from the details of Gentleman Jackson's and where all the squares are in relation to each other and where exactly Mary-Louise's gaming house would be (there's an awesome, incredibly-detailed map online), not to mention what unit fought where and who would have served in it (or where, exactly, Jeff's house on Lake Como might have been or what Danneel would have been serving at a party) but Sally Jersey was almost an afterthought, a whoops-we-need-to-get-into-Almacks requirement, so all I really did was skim a list of the patronesses and pick her as fitting in with my Dowager. I had no idea how true that was!