Lady Charlotte Guest (1812 – 1895)
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Lady Charlotte Guest (1812 – 1895)
Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Bertie was born in 1812, the daughter of the 9th Earl Lindsey, and she was brought up in Lincolnshire. She was very fond of literature from a very young age. She moved to London when she was 21 years of age, and met her husband-to-be, a widower named Sir Josiah John Guest, originally from Merthyr Tydfil. The couple married in 1833 and made their home in Dowlais House. Her husband part-owned the nearby Dowlais Iron Company.
Life in Merthyr Tydfil
Charlotte was very interested in the ironworks, and worked hard to improve the lives of the workers and local people. She modernised the schools, and promoted adult education. In 1855 she opened a new school with places for 1,566 pupils. As she did this work, her interests in politics, social life and London Society grew. She learned to manage the iron works from day to day, learned Welsh, modernized schools and had ten children!
The Mabinogion
Lady Charlotte Guest's most important work was to translate the tales of the Mabinogion and the History of Taliesin from middle Welsh to modern Welsh and then into English, after John Jones (Tegid) had lent her a copy of the Red Book of Hergest. These high quality translations were published in three volumes between 1838 and 1849 – by dividing the tales into seven parts. This was the only translation for almost a century until Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones published a new translation in 1948! By doing this work, she brought medieval Welsh literature to the notice of the rest of Europe.
Travelling in Europe
When her husband, Josiah John Guest, died in 1852, Lady Charlotte Guest managed the iron works until 1855 when she remarried, this time to Charles Schreiber, the Member of Parliament for Poole and Cheltenham. They left to travel in Europe in the years that followed, and she collected a fair amount of pottery which she left to the Victoria and Albert Museum on her death. She died on 15 January 1895.