He continues.
"I enclose a letter from Mr. New on the subject to Lady Georgiana Fullerton who is actively interested herself in the matter. If you would read and return to Lady Georgiana at 27, Chapel Street it would serve as an opening to negotiate".

These negotiations came to nothing but a school was eventually to be built, after her death, in Yelverton Road, financed partly by a gift from Lady Georgiana's husband. He also left £4,000 in his will to be applied to the Bournemouth mission and school.



Until the last year of her life Lady Georgiana still travelled - visiting her brother Earl Granville at Walmer Castle' where he lived as Warden of the Cinque Ports, (he was Foreign Secretary in Mr. Gladstone's Government), going to Paris, Boulogne and Rome when she was well enough. The last year of her life was spent in Bournemouth confined most of the time to bed.

In the autumn of 1884 her brother, the Foreign Secretary who had been at Osborne House with Queen Victoria visited her, coming to Bournemouth by steamer from the Isle of Wight. But her friends spoke of her continual moral and material support for Institutions and charities both in Bournemouth and farther afield despite her illness.

She had her own chapel at Ayrfield, and Mrs. Craven writing of Christmas 1883 said, "Christmas Eve came soon and that night the colours of the sky were more beautiful than ever. As my husband and I watched the lights from the road which ran along the cliff it seemed to us that we were under the heaven of Naples.It was to be my last Christmas with him. At night the little chapel at Ayrfield with garlands of flowers and the red berries of the holly.

There was no midnight Mass but we sang after prayers Adeste Fidelis before a crib beautifully lighted up. The service next day was finely celebrated in the Church with music such as is not often heard outside the great towns and a congregation of striking devotion as is nearly always the case in England."

Of Lady Georgiana she wrote, "It was to be her last Christmas there and the preparations for it may have cost her some exertion. She had determined that year to give a real treat to the young persons of the Convalescent Home, a treat such as they had never had there, as if she felt beforehand that it would be her last.

It was under the charge of one who was at once an experienced manager, an indefatigable, and a person capable of ruling a household. Miss Shea kept everything in neat and good order and possessed an inexhaustible fund of good humour and gaiety".

"The day after Christmas was fixed for the party. Lady Georgiana took her place in Miss Shea's apartment surrounded by packages and bundles of all shapes and sizes full of presents for young people which she insisted on giving to them with her own hands for the sake of being able to accompany them with kind words and friendly advice."

Mrs. Craven also wrote about the life Lady Georgiana led in Bournemouth.

"Lady Georgiana1s sufferings (1883/4) of which she never complained were not so great as to forbid her taking long drives in an open carriage and thus we saw with her the beautiful neighbourhood of Bournemouth. She took me to all her favourite spots, most frequently to the pine woods which look out on the sea and which clothe with perpetual green that smiling and picturesque coast.

The weather was exceptionally beautiful. In no Northern climate can I remember to have seen so bright and pure a sky."

Of life at Ayrfield she wrote, "The evenings were passed in quiet conversation or a game of cards over which we often laughed in a manner which now brings tears to my eyes to think of. At ten o'clock the whole household met in the chapel, to end, in united prayers, the day that had begun in the same place with Mass."

When they did not visit the Convent or Convalescent Home, the drive ended by a call on some of the friends and neighbours of whom she saw most.

Among these were Baroness Von Hugel, who possessed a charming home at Bournemouth in Bordogan Road and whose conversation was brilliant and original in the highest degree. Another friend was Lady Victoria Kirwan, aunt of the young Duchess of Norfolk.

Another was the octogenerian poet Sir Henry Taylor. He lived with his family in a house called The Roost in Hinton Road and much pleasant time was spent with him. His home was full of intelligence, cleverness and brilliancy. Lady Georgiana was highly appreciated by him."

He encouraged free and open discussion of all topics and, "In discussions of this sort Lady Georgiana who was generally silent from reserve or humility would often let herself out with unusual freedom. I can hear still her sonorous and pleasant voice when she became animated on some subjects.

I can see the fine face of Sir Henry Taylor listening to her or answering her, his long, white-beard, his noble features and the red dressing gown in which he wrapped himself up. It was a picturesque sight."

In the last few months of her life she rarely left her rooms in Ayrfield - she regretted that from her room she could only see a line of sea over the trees and roofs and then only when the trees were not in leaf.

She wrote in May: "I can see from my bed a bright, green sycamore mixing its fresh foliage with that of fir tree. My husband and Miss Doggett (an old family friend) drove to Heron Court yesterday and brought me back an abundance of hawthorn (le buisson blanc don't your peasants call it) and lilac from the cottage gardens."

Although her health was failing she started to write the biography of one of her friends, Lady Lothian. It was not to be finished. Lady Georgiana Fullerton died at Ayrfield on the 19th January 1885 with her family about her. She was buried at Roehampton in the cemetery of the1 Convent of the Sacred Heart.

The remains of her son were transferred from Fulham cemetery to lie beside her. Her husband too when he died in 1907 at the age of 99, was buried next to her.

The above sketch of Lady Georgiana's life has concentrated on her time in Bournemouth and has left out many other facets of her life - she introduced Christmas trees into Mentone, established tea parties for poor children in Boulogne. She attracted many friends, and was a prolific letter writer.

Whilst in Bournemouth she corresponded with Gladstone about the hypocrisy of admonishing Turkey for its treatment of Christians and ignoring similar atrocities carried out by the Russians on Polish Christians.

She solicited charitable gifts from all quarters including the Pope. She was an affectionate aunt, cousin and sister. In the family she was known as "Dody". Her sister's eldest daughter Susan wrote that since her marriage in 1872, "my intercourse with my aunt was principally in London or at Bournemouth when staying there with my sisters."

Later she wrote: "I saw her occasionally whenever I was at Stapleton, (Stapleton House, Iwerne Stepleton), where my sisters live and which is not far from Bournemouth and admired the way she made the best of every little pleasure remaining to her. She enjoyed so much the very restricted view from her window and watching a particular squirrel at play was, she said, a great amusement to her."

Of her aunt she said, "She always had the power of enjoying life and her religion had nothing in it that was morose. She was always fond of children and liked to see their pleasure. I recollect her coming once to see my little nephews and nieces with her pockets full of penny toys because she said she had observed that expensive toys were quite wasted on children who much preferred quantity to quality."

Her novels were melodramas with religious themes. The first, "Ellen Middleton", written whilst she was still an Anglican showed according to one reviewer, "the influence 'of Tractarian teaching". "Later novels had a Roman Catholic background.

In 1955 the Quarterly Review said that Lady Georgiana Fullerton had the essential virtue of vitality. The novels were readable. She wrote about human nature and was not afraid to touch on guilt and misery.

Lady Georgiana was a near Saint who created credible and not always unamiable sinners but she was aware of the horror of self-righteousness. The review concluded that she should not be ignored. or read condescendingly.