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Gertrude Elizabeth Blood


Gertrude Elizabeth, Lady Colin Campbell (née Blood; 3 May 1857 – 1 November 1911) was an Irish-born journalist, author, playwright, and editor. She was married to Lord Colin Campbell, a brother-in-law of Princess Louise, Queen Victoria's fourth daughter.

Her parents were Irish landowner Edmund Maghlin Blood (1815, Brickhill, Co. Clare – 1891, Chelsea, London) and Mary Amy Fergusson (1815, Leixlip, Co. Kildare – 8 October 1899, Chelsea, London) who had married in 1851. The Blood family had held estates in County Clare since the reign of Elizabeth I. Edmund and Mary produced three children: Neptune William (born 7 July 1853), Mary Beatrice (born c. 1855) and Gertrude Elizabeth.

Gertrude, a statuesque dark-eyed and celebrated beauty, met Lord Colin Campbell in October 1880 while visiting friends in Scotland, and they had become engaged within days. The couple married on 21 July 1881.

Lord Colin had been born on 9 March 1853, the fifth son of George Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll and Lady Elizabeth Georgiana Sutherland-Leveson-Gower. He graduated as a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.), was the Member of Parliament for Argyllshire from 1878 to 1885, and started practising as a barrister in 1886.

The wedding had been twice postponed by Lord Colin because of his health issues, and when he proposed an antenuptial agreement, requiring being nursed until his doctor felt that he was well enough to consummate the marriage, Edmund Blood suspected the worst and openly inquired whether Lord Colin was suffering from "that loathsome disease", a euphemism for a sexually transmitted infection. Gertrude's mother, though, wanted wedding plans to proceed, perhaps because it would provide an entrée to what she regarded as elevated social circles. The Duke of Argyll opposed the match, feeling that his son would be marrying below his station.


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