Laura Thistlethwayte, from Courtesan to Preacher

 

Portrait by Richard Buckner

When Laura Thistlethwayte died quietly at her home, ‘Woodbine Cottage’ in West Hampstead, in 1894, most people had no idea of the adventurous and notorious life she had led. Born Laura Bell in Dublin about 1829 she was the daughter of Robert Henry Bell and Laura Jane Seymour. Her mother was the illegitimate daughter of the 3^rd Marquess of Hertford and her father was the bailiff for the 4^th Marquess. Young Laura grew up at Bellbrook House, Glenavy, County Antrim.

When she was 14 Laura went to Belfast and got a job as a shop assistant. As a very attractive girl she soon found a more lucrative living as a courtesan, and her affairs with wealthy men made her notorious. After a few years she moved to Dublin where she drove around the town in a coach with a pair of white horses. One of her lovers was Dr William Wilde, a well-known Dublin dental surgeon and the father of Willie and Oscar Wilde. Having accumulated gifts and money from her lovers, Laura left for London at the end of 1849 where she found employment in Jay’s General Mourning House in Regent Street.

In May 1850 Jung Bahadur the Prime Minister of Nepal, met Laura and was totally captivated by her. They became lovers and during their short affair, Jung Bahadur is said to have given Laura £250,000, worth an astonishing £21M today. Laura lived in a house he bought for her in fashionable Wilton Crescent Belgravia, and her beauty and her escapades were the talk of the town. One writer said of her:

‘It was Laura Bell’s aim to cut a dash and this she certainly succeeded in doing. She had a small doll-like face, piquant and provocative, big blue eyes, a strawberry-and-cream complexion, cascades of glorious golden hair, the most shapely pair of shoulders in London, and a soft and persuasive voice. She was, in short, well-armed for her attack upon male susceptibility. Hyde Park she adopted as her showroom wherein to display her charms and in Hyde Park when she went riding or driving she invariably caused a sensation. She drove daily in the park with a ‘Tiger’ (a young pageboy in a waistcoat of black and yellow stripes and a tall cockaded hat), sitting up proudly behind her.’

In 1851 Laura became the lover of Arthur Thistlethwayte, a soldier and the younger of two brothers from a very wealthy family. Under his father’s will Arthur had received the bulk of the family money, while Frederick only got a yearly allowance of £300. The Thistlethwayte fortune came from property near Portsmouth which was sold to the Government in order to build a coastal fort. They also owned about 500 acres of valuable land in London between the Bayswater and Edgware Roads. 

Then suddenly on 21 January 1852, Laura married Arthur’s brother, Augustus Frederick. A few years later Arthur went to the Crimea with his regiment. He fought bravely at the Battle of Alma but died of disease at Scutari Barracks Hospital on 26 November 1854, shortly after Florence Nightingale and her nurses arrived. His fortune passed to Frederick.

Mrs Laura Thistlethwayte

Frederick and Laura lived at 15 Grosvenor Square where they entertained and held dinner parties. But hearing Richard Weaver speak changed her life. He was a hard drinker and prize fighter who had converted to Christianity. In 1856, Laura embraced her new religious beliefs and embarked on a career as a preacher, addressing audiences at venues such as the Regent Street Polytechnic. The talks she gave attracted large crowds who came to see the former ‘Queen of London Whoredom’ as she had been called. At the same time, it appears Laura may have continued to have affairs, including one with artist Edwin Landseer. He is probably best known for sculpting the lions at the base of Nelson’s Column.

William Ewart Gladstone

In December 1864 Laura began a lengthy correspondence with William Gladstone who was Prime Minister four times, beginning in 1868. He attended her dinners with other politicians at Grosvenor Square. Their 30-year friendship was clearly very close, with Gladstone confiding in her, but there is no evidence of a physical affair. He certainly attempted to ‘rescue’ prostitutes from the streets, putting an X in his diaries, (thought to record moral temptation and danger), against these cases and some of his meetings with Laura.

Laura told Gladstone she would give him an account of her life. The promised autobiography arrived at Downing Street in at least twenty-eight parts between early September 1869 and mid-January 1870. Gladstone was undoubtedly excited by the instalments. His letters of response show that Laura confided intimate details of a childhood running wild, followed by what appear to be coerced sexual relationships with older men from the age of fourteen. Gladstone kept her letters and the autobiography until 1893, when he burned them.

Queen Victoria is believed to have told Disraeli in 1876 that Gladstone was mad to dine with the ‘notorious’ Mrs Thistlethwayte. Close Liberal colleagues were eager to conceal this aspect of Gladstone’s life from as many people as possible – certainly from the general public. In 1925 Peter Wright wrote a book accusing Gladstone of having affairs with woman such as Lillie Langtry and Laura Thistlethwayte. This was raised in a headline court case two years later when Wright lost a libel charge against Gladstone’s sons and was forced to pay £6,000 costs. The details of Gladstone and Laura Thistlethwayte’s close relationship did not really become public knowledge until the Gladstone diaries were published, beginning in 1968.

Frederick and Laura’s marriage was not a happy one, and they increasingly tended to live separate lives. She stayed in London and hosted lavish parties, while he spent considerable time hunting in Scotland. By 1870 her extravagant lifestyle resulted in her owing creditors £25,000, forcing her to sign an undertaking to Frederick that she would live within her allowance. But Laura could not stop spending. In 1878 Frederick issued a public notice to traders saying that Laura had no authority to purchase items on his credit. Still Laura spent and the tradesmen believed that Frederick would pay up, but he refused. Sued by her milliner, in court Laura argued that her £500 annual dress allowance was insufficient. Surprisingly, Frederick Thistlethwayte won the cases where he was sued for payment by his wife’s creditors.

On 7 August 1887 Frederick was found dying from a pistol shot at home in Grosvenor Square. Bizarrely it was said he kept a pistol on his bedside table which he used to summon the servants. When investigated this claim did appear true, with a visitor remarking on the bullet holes in the ceiling. The coroner decided that Frederick had stumbled against the table and accidentally shot himself, the cause of death being; ‘a pistol shot to the head accidentally when carrying a loaded pistol, found in a helpless condition on the floor and died in 14 hours.’ This is what appeared on his death certificate. However, many believed it was suicide. Even in 1927 Norman Burkitt KC, acting for Gladstone’s sons against Peter Wright, said that in his opinion Frederick had killed himself, despite the inquest verdict.

Despite their marital problems, Frederick left Laura £71,561 in his will (worth about £8M today). After his death Laura sold the house in Grosvenor Square and moved to the quiet seclusion of Woodbine Cottage in West End, Hampstead, which Frederick had bought in 1881. Gladstone visited her there several times.

West End, 1894

Laura settled down to become one of West End’s worthies, contributing generously to local charities, those associated with Emmanuel Church (first situated on Mill Lane), and causes embracing animal welfare.

Laura fell ill and died in Woodbine Cottage on 30 May 1894. She was in a coma for four days and the cause of death was given as acute renal congestion and uraemia (a build-up of urea in the blood). The obituaries stressed her good works, making only veiled references to her past life. Laura was buried in her husband’s family vault in Paddington Cemetery, Willesden Lane.  

She left £41,357 and instructions in her will for Woodbine Cottage to become a ‘Retreat for Clergymen of all denominations’. But the property was sold to a consortium for about £13,000 (today worth about £1.5M), and demolished. Today this is the site of the relocated Emmanuel Church and Lyncroft Gardens.

Thistlethwayte family grave, Paddington Cemetery