Milbanke, Anne (1792–1860)

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Milbanke, Anne (1792–1860)

English philanthropist. Name variations: Annabella; Lady Noel Byron. Born Anne Isabella Milbanke at Elmore Hall, Durham, May 17, 1792; died 1860; only child of Sir Ralph and Lady Milbanke; niece of Lady Elizabeth Melbourne; m. George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron, Jan 2, 1815 (sep. 1816); children: Ada Byron, countess of Lovelace (1815–1852).

Following brief marriage to Lord Byron, founded a progressive industrial and agricultural school at Ealing Grove, based on theories of Swiss agriculturist Philipp Fellenberg; also subsidized other educational institutes, including Mary Carpenter's Red House, a girls' reformatory (1854); a close associate of Barbara Bodichon, backed American abolitionists and Italian Republicans.

See also E.C. Mayne, Life and Letters of Anne Isabella, Lady Noel Bryon (1929); Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lady Byron Vindicated (1870); and Women in World History.