Viscountess Hannah Freame Dawson and the Viscount

Times Past

Jonathan Smyth

This week, for our final part on the Dawsons of Dartrey series, we pick up from where we left off with the death of Lady Anne Fermor Dawson for whom Thomas Dawson built a Temple at Dartrey.

Thomas soon remarried. His second wife was a lady named Hannah Freame and she had a strong American Quaker heritage. Hannah Freame’s grandfather, William Penn, was born at Tower Hill, London, England, in 1644, and became the founder of Pennsylvania in the United States. While on a visit to Ireland he heard by chance a speech delivered by a Quaker and being deeply moved, decided to join the religious sect while in his early twenties. William emigrated to America where he received a large land grant of 45,000 square miles, which he named Penns-wood, and part of this land is part of present day Pennsylvania.

Hannah’s mother, Margaret Freame (née Penn), was a daughter of William Penn from his second marriage. Incidentally, Margaret’s brother Thomas Penn was married to Lady Julianna Fermor, a sister of the deceased Lady Anne Fermor. Like her sister, Lady Julianna was an intelligent woman, and she assisted her husband in the administration of the colony of Pennsylvania. One wonders if she may have encouraged her niece Hannah to marry the widowed Thomas Dawson.

Hannah's father was Thomas Freame of Philadelphia. He was a nephew of John Freame, the co-founder of Barclays Bank. Hannah developed a close friendship with Queen Charlotte of ‘Great Britain and Ireland’ and served as one of her ladies in waiting.

The Netflix show called Bridgeton features a fictionalised version of Queen Charlotte; she was married to King George III. After the future Viscount Cremorne’s first wife’s death in 1769, he then encountered Hannah Freame and they were married in 1770. Just to refresh our memory, I will again mention that Thomas Dawson was elevated to the peerage of Ireland in 1770 as Baron Dartrey, of Dawson Grove and thereafter to the lofty title of Viscount Cremorne, on June 9, 1785, and then Baron of Cremorne in 1797.

Lord and Lady Cremorne were witnesses at the trial of a man who had committed murder. Mr England was a wanted man who had managed to evade the law in 1784 and went on the run for 12 years. The Northampton Mercury, on February 27, 1796, reported: ‘That the dispute had originated in a gaming transaction, in which the deceased, Mr Raul, had left a considerable sum of money to the gentleman (Mr England) at the bar. The affair was brought into a Court of Justice, but, by advice of the council on both sides, was compromised, so that Mister Raul was to pay Mr England a part of the sum claimed’ and as a result of England not being ‘satisfied with the adjustment, entertained sentiments of resentment, threatening that the matter should not rest there’.

On June 18, 1784, the pair met at Cranford Bridge, London, and in an arranged duel they discharged pistols at each other. Lord Cremorne said at the trial that he and Lady Cremorne and the Rev Burroughs rector of St Clement's were passing that way at the time of the duel. Lord Cremorne gave evidence that he and Mr Burrows had 'intervened' to prevent the spilling of blood and for the ‘purpose of mediation'. However, Mr England simply said ‘gentlemen, I have been cruelly treated, injured in my honour and character; let there be a reparation made to that, and I'll have done.’

Mr Raul, a Brewer of Kingston, died in the dual at Cranford Bridge on June 18, 1784.

Eleven years later, Hannah wrote a letter to Mary Hamilton when she had retired as lady in waiting to the Queen. The original letter is held as part of the Mary Hamilton collection in the University of Manchester. Hannah wrote that she could not leave ‘this place where the Queen has been so good to her without leaving a little note to express her thanks’ and asked that when Ms Hamilton ‘has an opportunity to give her duty to the Queen’, to inform her of ‘how happy she has been to be allowed to see the Queen's Virtues, so near'. The Queen, and Hannah, remained steadfast friends.

Hannah and her Viscount husband did not reside all year round at Dartrey and in fact possessed a townhouse on Stanhope Street, Chelsea. Their London estate later became known as the Cremorne Gardens, named in the Dawson’s honour.

In the years ahead, Lady Cremorne remained a close confidant of Queen Charlotte and was described by an old inhabitant of Chelsea as ‘the cherished companion’ of the said Queen and indeed she was a friend towards the princesses, the queen's daughters.

On the occasions that Queen Charlotte called around to Hannah’s for ‘tea’ and to ‘take counsel’, there was a certain disappearance act arranged each time for poor old Viscount Cremorne who being ‘gouty’ and ‘unable to stand in her Majesty's presence’ embarrassingly found himself surplus to requirement and he would be whisked off in his bathchair to avoid ‘transgressing the rules of etiquette’. He could not stand and bow.

I suppose it was a case of out of sight, out of mind, for the unfortunate man. All the same, it may have given the two women more privacy to discuss the various shades of gossip causing a stir in the upper echelons of society. The old inhabitant who provided the account on Lady Cremorne had the story printed in the West Middlesex Advertiser and Family journal on February 11, 1860. I wonder if Lady Danbury, the Queen's trusted confidant in the Netflix series, was based on Lady Cremorne.

Hannah and Thomas had two children, both of whom died in 1787; Thomas Jnr died aged 16, and Juliana Frances, died aged 10. Upon his death in 1813, the Viscount was again left without an immediate heir. In January 1814, the Morning Post commended the Viscountess Cremorne, who ‘still continues her donations to the poor'.

Viscountess Hannah Freame Dawson lived until April 14, 1826, and upon that day, she died at the age of 86 years at her house in Stanhope Street, May Fair, London. Her obituary, in the Coventry Herald, on Friday, April 21, 1826, recalled her having ‘attractive and enduring qualities' and how she possessed ‘the love and attachment of the most humble’.

On April 18, 1826, the Morning Post published a poem by an anonymous poet in her honour, that pointed to her locks now silvered with age, adding, ‘And still thou art not sad.’

In summing up, the Dawsons had a long and historical association with Dartrey. From the first of the Dawsons who set foot in Ireland as an Elizabethan adventurer, to the earliest family members who obtained land at Dartrey in the 17th Century. Through the generations there were MPs like Richard Dawson, the Viscount and Viscountess Cremorne, the various Earls of Dartrey and finally the demise of the estate and departure of the Dawsons from local life, with Lady Windham-Dawson being the last of her family to reside in the area. The Dawsons may be gone, but their history still whispers in the air.