Margaret Cavendish-Harley
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Her Grace The Duchess of Portland |
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Margaret Cavendish Bentinck, Duchess of Portland by Christian Friedrich Zincke, 1738
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| Personal details | |
| Born | 11 February 1715 Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire |
| Died | 9 April 1785 Bulstrode Park, Buckinghamshire |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse(s) | William Bentinck, 2nd Duke of Portland (1709-1762) |
| Children |
Lady Elizabeth Bentinck (1735-1825) Lady Henrietta Bentinck (1737-1827) William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (1738-1809) Lady Margaret Bentinck (c.1740-1756) Lady Frances Bentinck (c.1742-1743) Lord Edward Charles Bentinck (1744-1819) |
| Parents | Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1689-1741) and Lady Henrietta Holles (1694-1755) |
| Occupation | Art and natural history specimens collector |
Margaret Cavendish Bentinck, Duchess of Portland (11 February 1715 – 17 July 1785) was a British aristocrat, styled Lady Margaret Harley before 1734, Duchess of Portland from 1734 to her husband's death in 1761, and Dowager Duchess of Portland from 1761 until her own death in 1785.
The duchess was the richest woman in Great Britain of her time and had the largest natural history collection in the country, complete with its own curator, the parson-naturalist John Lightfoot, and the Swedish botanist Daniel Solander. Her collection included costly art objects including the Portland Vase. Her ambition for her collection was for it to contain and to describe every living species.
She was a member of the , a group of social intellectuals led by women. She was also great-great-great-great grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II through her mother's side.
She was the only surviving child of the 2nd Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, bibliophile, collector and patron of the arts, and the former Lady Henrietta Holles (1694–1755, the only child and heir of the 1st Duke of Newcastle and his wife, the former Lady Margaret Cavendish).
Lady Margaret grew up at Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire, surrounded by books, paintings, sculpture and in the company of writers such as Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift and Matthew Prior as well as aristocrats and politicians. As a child, she collected pets and natural history objects (especially seashells) and was encouraged by her father and her paternal grandfather, the 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, to do so.
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