Frances Jocelyn, Viscountess Jocelyn

Frances Cowper
Viscountess Jocelyn
Lithograph of Viscountess Jocelyn, c. 1849
Husband	Robert Jocelyn, Viscount Jocelyn
Issue Edith Gore, Viscountess Sudley Robert Jocelyn, 4th Earl of Roden
Full name Lady Frances Elizabeth Cowper
Father	Peter Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper
Mother	Emily Lamb, Countess Cowper
Born	1820
Died	March 26, 1880 (aged 59–60) Cannes, France

Frances Elizabeth Jocelyn, Viscountess Jocelyn, VA (née Cowper; 1820 – 26 March 1880) was a British courtier and amateur photographer. She was born as the youngest daughter of Peter Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper and his wife Emily Lamb. However, some have speculated that she and her brother William were fathered by Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, whom Lady Cowper married in 1839, after Cowper's death. Before her marriage, Lady Frances served as one of the trainbearers at the coronation of Queen Victoria, and she also served as a bridesmaid at the wedding of the queen to Prince Albert in 1840.

Lady Frances married Robert Jocelyn, Viscount Jocelyn, the son and heir of the 3rd Earl of Roden, in 1841, and became a Lady of the Bedchamber to the queen later that year. Lord Jocelyn died in 1854, devastating his wife. Lady Jocelyn later turned to photography, focusing on domesticity, a subject that was common for women photographers in the Victorian era. The Encyclopaedia of Nineteenth-century Photography has written that her photographic collages – collections of cut-up images re-inserted onto painted backdrops – and use of watercolours "subverted the realistic nature of photography".

Lady Frances Elizabeth Cowper was born in 1820, the youngest daughter of Emily Lamb, Countess Cowper, a daughter of Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne. Her paternity was officially attributed to Lady Cowper's husband, the 5th Earl Cowper. However, the historian K.D. Reynolds and others have argued that Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston was actually the father of Lady Frances and her brother William. Once widowed, her mother married Palmerston, though Lady Frances did not care for him. He became Prime Minister in 1859.