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Harriet Arbuthnot (10 September 1793 – 2 August 1834) was an early 19th-century English diarist, social observer and political hostess on behalf of the Tory party. During the 1820s she was the "''closest woman friend''" of the hero of Waterloo and British Prime Minister, the 1st Duke of Wellington.〔Longford, p. 195.〕 She maintained a long correspondence and association with the Duke, all of which she recorded in her diaries, which are consequently extensively used in all authoritative biographies of the Duke of Wellington. Born into the periphery of the British aristocracy and married to a politician and member of the establishment, she was perfectly placed to meet all the key figures of the Regency and late Napoleonic eras. Recording meetings and conversations often verbatim, she has today become the "''Mrs. Arbuthnot''" quoted in many biographies and histories of the era. Her observations and memories of life within the British establishment are not confined to individuals but document politics, great events and daily life with an equal attention to detail, providing historians with a clear picture of the events described. Her diaries were themselves finally published in 1950 as ''The Journal of Mrs Arbuthnot''.〔 〕 ==Early life== Harriet Arbuthnot was born Harriet Fane, the daughter of the Hon. Henry Fane, second son of Thomas Fane, 8th Earl of Westmorland. As a young man, Henry Fane had been described as "''very idle and careless and spending much time in the country''".〔Lincolnshire archives, p. 19.〕 However, he found time to be the Member of Parliament for Lyme and in 1772 was appointed Keeper of the King's Private Roads.〔 In 1778, he married Arbuthnot's mother, Anne Batson, an heiress, the daughter of Edward Buckley Batson. The couple had 14 children: nine sons and five daughters.〔 The young Harriet spent much of her childhood at the family home at Fulbeck Hall in Lincolnshire, sited high on the limestone hills above Grantham. The house, which had been given to Henry Fane by his father, was a not over-large modern mansion at the time of Arbuthnot's childhood. It was rebuilt following a fire in 1733, and further extended and modernised in 1784 by Henry Fane.〔Fulbeck Hall.〕 At Fulbeck Harriet and her 13 siblings enjoyed a comfortable and reasonably affluent rural childhood. Harriet Fane's father died when she was nine years old, but the family fortunes improved considerably in 1810 when her mother inherited the Avon Tyrrell estate in Hampshire and the Upwood Estate in Dorset.〔 This yielded the widowed Mrs Fane an income of £6,000 per annum〔Lincolnshire archives, p. 20.〕 (£ per year as of ), a large income by the standards of the day. With 14 children and a position in society to maintain, however, the money was fully utilised. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Harriet Arbuthnot」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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