Violet Fane

Mary Montgomerie Currie (née Lamb)
Born	24 February 1843
Died	13 October 1905
Occupation	Poet, Writer, Ambassadress
Spouse(s)	Henry Sydenham Singleton Esq. (m.-1893) Sir Philip Currie (m.1894-1905)

Henry Sydenham Singleton Esq. (m.-1893)

Violet Fane is the literary pseudonym of Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie (née Lamb, 24 February 1843 – 13 October 1905). A poet, a writer, and later an ambassadress, who was active in the British literary scene from 1872 until her death in 1905, Fane was a literary celebrity associated with Aestheticism, Medievalism, whose verses were occasionally set to music by famous composers such as Paolo Tosti. As a well-known figure in London society, Fane's coterie included famous literary personas such as Robert Browning, Algernon Swinburne, A. W. Kinglake, Alfred Austin, James McNeil Whistler, Lillie Langtry, and Oscar Wilde, who praised the oracular bent of Fane’s opinions on 'the relation of art to nature' by saying that she ‘live[d] between Parnassus and Piccadilly’.

Born as Mary Montgomerie Lamb prematurely on 24 February 1843 at Littlehampton, Sussex, Fane was the eldest daughter of Charles James Savile Montgomerie Lamb (1816–1856) and Anna Charlotte Gray (bap. 1824, d. 1880). As the heir of the baronetcy of Burville, Berkshire, and Beauport, Charlie Lamb was descended from two aristocratic families. Charlotte Gray, on the other hand, was the daughter of a draper and an alleged smuggler, and she was rumoured to have had gipsy forebears. Charlie and Charlotte eloped in secret, and got married first in Edinburgh, and then in London to validate the legitimacy of their marriage. When Fane was born a few years later, the couple sent their (then one-month-old) daughter to her paternal grandparents with a note that explained their secret marriage and asking for their forgiveness. As a token of their good intentions, Charlie and Charlotte presented the baby to Sir Charles and Lady Mary as their granddaughter. From then on, Fane lived with her grandparents in their ancestral home, Beauport Park. Her parents went abroad for a year-long honeymoon, and returned to join Fane and her grandparents in Beauport as devotees of the oriental life.

...
Wikipedia