Ada Maria Jenyns
[PB: SGJ's elder daughter, Ada Maria, married Robert Jocelyn in 1882, a man with a military background comparable to her own father's. There appears to be a reliable genealogy of the Jocelyn Family / Earls of Roden here.]
Marriage of SGJ's daughter Ada Maria to Robert Jocelyn reported in the York Herald, 9th December 1882. Two sisters, Florence and Ethel, are also mentioned.
(Click on image to enlarge)
MARRIAGE OF MISS JENYNS, OF RAWCLIFFE.
On Thursday morning, at Clifton Church, in the suburbs of this city, the marriage of Miss Jenyns (eldest daughter of the late Col. Soame Gambier Jenyns, C.B., who was the eldest son of Mr. Geo. Jenyns, of Bottisham Hall, Cambridge) of Rawcliffe, near York, and Major B.J.O. Jocelyn, of the 8th King's Regiment, and the younger son of the late Hon. John Jocelyn, took place. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. F.G. Jenyns, rector of Knebworth, uncle of the bride, assisted by the Bey. H.G. Hopkins, vicar of Clifton. The bride was given away by her uncle, Mr. G.S. Thompson, of Moorlands, and the best man was Captain Jocelyn, R.N.
The bride was attired in ivory satin with bugle and pearl lace front, tulle veil, fastened with diamond and pearl ornaments, orange blossom adorning her hair and bodice. She also carried a magnificent bouquet of stephanotes and other choice flowers.
Mrs. Jenyns, the mother of the bride, was attired in deep red plush and satin. The bridesmaids — whose dresses were of ruby Cashmere, trimmed with ruby watered silk, pale grey gloves, grey straw turbans, trimmed with ruby velvet and ruby silk tufts — were as follows: Miss Florence Jenyns, Miss Ethel Jenyns (sisters of the bride), Miss Edith Thompson, Miss Minna Young (cousins of the bride), and Miss Nina Tockworth. Theee ladies wore gold spray brooches, the gift of the bridegroom.
There was a numerous congregation to witness the ceremony, and as the wedding party left the church the usual friendly showers of rice greeted the bride and bridegroom, the church bells meanwhile ringing out merrily.
The wedding breakfast took place at the residence of Mrs. Jenyns, Rawcliffe, when the following were the guests: Mr. and Mrs. H.S. Thompson, Mr. and Mrs. G.S. Thompson, Mrs. Young, Rev. F.G. Jenyns, Captain Jocelyn, R.N., Hon. A.G. F. Jocelyn, Mrs Fredk. Thompson, Mr. H.F.D. Thompson, Mrs. F.S. Thompson, Captain T. Hotham. R.A., Captain Dixon, Miss Klaley, Mr. Prescot, the Rev. H.G. Hopkins, &c. The wedding presents were numerous and costly.
The happy pair left York for London by the Scotch Express on Thursday afternoon.
There is a fine painting by Frank de Prades of a (middle-name) Jocelyn who won a VC in the Crimea. Any relation?
Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Jocelyn Straton, 77th (The East Middlesex) Regiment of Foot, Alfred Frank de Prades (1840 — 1895) here)
[PB: I have been unable to find a single photograph of her!]
Ada Maria, born Aldershot c.1861, died 18 February 1931. Married [?] Later Countess of Roden. (More below.)
Ada Maria had three children, the first (Robert Soame Jocelyn, 8th Earl of Roden) named after her father.
As "Mrs Robert Jocelyn", she wrote numerous novels [and plays?], typically in several volumes (to suit the Circulating Libraries of the day). Many relate to the "sporting" world — by which was meant fox-hunting and horse-racing — and soome to the spirit world and ghosts.
Did she ever refer to the Crimea or her father?
Source?
(Click on image to enlarge)
I have come across a couple of mentions of her as a popular and prolific novelist of the time e.g. John Sutherland writes in his Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction:
JOCELYN, Mrs Robert [Ada Maria] (née Jenyns, 1860 — 1931).
Born in Aldershot, Ada Jenyns was the daughter of an army colonel. In 1892, she married R. J. O. Jocelyn (1845-1915), also a distinguished soldier and later the seventh Earl of Roden. Ouida and Whyte-Melville were Jocelyn's principal literary models. Her fiction which is by turns dashing, jokey (particularly her ghost stories about 'spooks'), military and horsey includes: A Distracting Guest (1889), a story of apparitions, mesmerism, love and country houses; The MFH's Daughter (1889); A Big Stake (1892); A Dangerous Brute (1895), the brute being Hawthorne, a brown horse; Juanita Carrington, A Sporting Novel (1896); Miss Rayburn's Diamonds (1898). Jocelyn wrote plays and apparently gave up fiction around 1898. BL 20. FCL. Wol. WW.
Enrico Martines writes:
Towards the end of the century, several married women writers drew on personal experience of the hunt to give a realistic background to their stories: for example, in the early nineties Mrs. Robert (Ada Maria) Jocelyn wrote a series of novels in which hunting scenes were described in a very breezy manner, showing a great knowledge of the social complexity of that world, as well as of horses.
Generally. the main protagonist was a woman. For example, in Run to Ground (1894) the story revolves around the character of Violet Clifford, described as "a good rider [with an] excellent seat, beautiful hands, and [who] is utterly without fear "(Huggins, 2004. p.160). The readers knew that sporting environments were not always respectable and expected from these stories some small scandal, linked to organized hunts in the typical country houses of the time.
[Source: Enrico Martines, Play the game! Come gli inglesi inventarono lo sport moderno, excerpts online here. My rough translation from the Italian.
The reference is probably to Mike Huggins, The Victorians and Sport, 2004. It might be worth following this up — a list of MH's considerable output of studies of sport, horse racing, vice etc. in British society can be found here.]
According to At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837 — 1901, here, her novels include:
- £100,000 versus Ghosts: A Novel, 2 vols (London: F.V. White, 1888). Summarised online as "A young woman inherits a haunted house. She can keep it if she lives there for a year."
- A Distracting Guest: A Novel, 2 vols (London: F.V. White, 1889).
- The M.F.H.'s Daughter: A Novel, 3 vols (London: F.V. White, 1890). Available online, and as a pdf, here. [M.F.H. = Master of Fox Hounds.] There are numerous references to military men, including:
- The Criton Hunt Mystery, 3 vols (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1890).
- A Big Stake: A Novel, 3 vols (London: F.V. White, 1892).
- Drawn Blank: A Novel, 3 vols (London: F.V. White, 1892).
- Only a Horse Dealer, 3 vols (London: F.V. White, 1893).
- For One Season Only: A Sporting Novel, 3 vols (London: F. V. White, 1893).
- Run to Ground: A Sporting Novel, 3 vols (London: Hutchinson, 1894).
- Pamela's Honeymoon, 3 vols (London: Hutchinson, 1894).
Source?
(Click on image to enlarge)
"Very handsome did Captain John Denham look in that full-length, large- sized photograph. His hussar uniform fitted his tall, well-made figure to perfection, and, with his handsome face above it, he looked an extremely fascinating and gentlemanly man... An undeniably handsome man. A tall, soldierly figure; a generally trim and smart appearance; a handsome face and a pair of exceptionally good dark blue eyes. Captain John Denham was a first-rate soldier, a capital companion, an extremely good man across country, very popular in his regiment, a man both men and women liked, and who would do any living creature a good turn, if by so doing he did not suffer much personal inconvenience, — and about as great a flirt as ever entered Her Majesty's service."
See also WorldCat: Jocelyn, Robert Mrs 1860 — 1931 that shows various editions and where her novels are currently held.
I have also come across references to other titles, and there may be more:
- A Regular Fraud. Available online, and as a pdf, here.
- Only a Flirt.
- Juanita Carrington: A Sporting Novel, (London: Digby & Long & Co, 1896).
- Lady Mary's Experiences, London: F.V. White & Co. Described online as "A novel constructed around three ghost stories, none of them rationalised, one involving a murder, and one of which may well have been the originating suggestion for Kipling's 'They'."
- Only a Love Story.
Source?