Dido Elizabeth Belle and Carolina, Lady Brisco – Uneasy Neighbours?

London Blue Badge tourist guide Mark King considers the contrasting stories of two 18th century women brought together at Kenwood House.

Front entrance Kenwood House, Hampstead,  London. Photo copyright Mark King

A cultural gem in a leafy, suburban setting

Just off the road between Hampstead and Highgate, perching resplendent on a ridge with a commanding view over the inner city’s expanses of prosaic rooftops and thrusting skyscrapers, stands one of London’s ‘hidden’ gems: Kenwood House.

Kenwood is the location of one of the country’s finest art collections. Principally the Iveagh Bequest, also the Suffolk Collection; miniatures; furniture; jewelled shoe-buckles; costume jewellery; and clocks. Portraits by Dutch and Flemish Old Masters – Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, van Dyck – rub shoulders with influential London- based painters such as Reynolds, Gainsborough, Kauffman, Lawrence and Sargent.

Were the Murrays minted? Is Guinness still good for you?

Between the 1750s and 1920s Kenwood was the private home of six generations of the Murray family. A successful lawyer and eminent judge, William was ennobled as Earl of Mansfield in 1776. He commissioned much of the villa’s neoclassical architecture we enjoy today.

Kenwood is now a ‘public house’ where anyone may enjoy 63 of brewery magnate Edward Cecil Guinness’s grandest paintings, at no charge. A successful businessman and notable philanthropist, Guinness became 1st Earl of Iveagh in 1905. His bequest at Kenwood has been described as one of the most generous gifts to the nation in the entire 20th century.

Dido Elizabeth Belle – a free woman

Raised in the household of the 1st Earl and his countess ‘Lady Betty’ was one of Georgian Britain’s most remarkable personalities: Dido Elizabeth Belle.

Dido was the mixed-race, illegitimate daughter of Murray’s nephew Sir John Lindsay. He fathered several illegitimate children with different mothers while in the Caribbean serving as a commander in the Royal Navy.

Brought to London aged four, little Dido grew up on this Kenwood estate. She had the good fortune to be raised like a member of the family, beloved and treated well. Her immediate circle included Lady Elizabeth Murray, daughter of the future 2nd Earl, whose mother had died young, and other members of the extended Murray clan.

Dido’s vibrant presence today at Kenwood is rare (possibly unique) for a surviving Georgian residence. David Martin’s charming double portrait of Dido and Elizabeth portrays two vivacious young ladies of similar social status and privileged lifestyle. They are shown here at Kenwood. Look in the bottom left corner of the painting for the distinctive dome of St Paul’s cathedral in the distance and the estate’s recently constructed Sham Bridge. The original oil painting is now at Scone Palace in Perthshire, the Mansfields’ Scottish seat.

Remarkably, in spite of her mixed heritage Dido is not shown as a person of lesser status. Nor, as commonly represented at that time, the powerless possession of a wealthy owner or exotically decorative accessory to a high-society family. We sense a loving bond between these young ladies in spite of their vastly different social origins and trajectories. The progressively-minded 1st Earl and Countess, who presumably commissioned this painting must have approved this positive representation.

Careful and caring, under the terms of his will the former Lord Chief Justice made clear that Dido’s legal status was that of a free woman. She inherited sums of money from her great-uncle and other members of the Murray family. These actions helped to secure her protection and independence for the remainder of her life and of her descendants. Dido was put in a position to enjoy choices and privileges that many other people of colour were denied at that time in Great Britain, let alone overseas in its colonies.

To celebrate Dido today a modern portrait by Mikéla Henry-Lowe greets visitors the moment they enter the house. A filmed version of Dido’s life by Amma Asante MBE is on sale in Kenwood’s gift shop. Fictional narrative complements Dido’s physical presence in her former home.

Portrait of Dido Belle by Mikéla Henry-Lowe (2021) at Kenwood House. Photo copyright Daniel King

If Dido represents an individual in Georgian Britain who rose above the fate of millions of people sharing her African heritage – enslaved and transported across the Atlantic as forced labour for colonial plantation economies – contrast her experience with that of a current ‘neighbour’ at Kenwood.

The portrait of Lady Brisco (1755-1822) by Gainsborough, Kenwood House. Photo copyright Mark King

Carolina Alicia Fleming – a freeholder

The future Lady Brisco was born into a wealthy, powerful family of plantation owners from the West Indies. Her marriage in 1776 to John Brisco, son and heir of a neighbouring plantation-owning family in the Leeward Islands consolidated a dynastic powerbase. Great wealth was being extracted relentlessly from enslaved labour and lucrative trade in commodities and consumer products. Her husband became a baronet in 1782, elevating his wife to the rank of ‘Lady’.

Thomas Gainsborough’s full-length portrait hangs in Kenwood’s Music Room as part of the 20th century Iveagh Bequest. You will find it a couple of rooms away from a copy of Martin’s double portrait of Dido and Elizabeth; yet most definitely a world away in terms of Carolina and Dido’s backgrounds.

Carolina’s mother was a Lady, her family comfortably off, her close relatives aristocratic, her marriage prospects rosy. She must have been raised wanting for nothing, secure in her standing in Britain’s social order. The family’s combined wealth enabled luxuries; for instance, commissioning this impressive full-length oil portrait from Gainsborough, a renowned and costly artist. It was to hang on the wall of the newly-married couple’s townhouse in Marylebone or their country seat at Crofton Hall in Cumbria.

The Briscos’ London residence appears to have been an elegant neoclassical space, just as Kenwood House became after the Adam Brothers remodelled the Mansfields’ suburban house in the 1760s-70s, So the fashionably designed villa where Dido lived drew on the same inspiration deriving from antique architectural forms. Similar living spaces yet such di’erent lives.

Carolina is presented by Gainsborough languidly showing off her possessions: expensive fabrics; fashionably tailored style; pearls and accessories; powdered hair piled high à la mode and with a costly ostrich plume. Yet every ounce of unaffected joy that Martin conveys in his portrait of two bright girls contrasts with the contrived hauteur oozing from the portrait of Carolina. We sense an uncomfortable truth: the expanse of English countryside in which she is set charms this artist significantly more than his primary subject. The painting has even been expanded by several inches on the right side of the canvas, as if to emphasise dominance and material possession of this Lake District idyll. Even Lady Brisco’s well-groomed canine companion’s outward-looking gaze seemingly challenges us not to be impressed.

Carolina inherited her father’s plantations and after starting a family together, added valuable assets from her husband’s estate when he died in 1805. We know little of her views about the men, women and children in her workforce. After slavery was abolished in the British empire in 1833, records show claims in excess of £10,600 as compensation for the enforced ‘loss’ of 656 enslaved people on the Brisco plantations. That is purchasing power equivalent to £4.5 million today. An eloquent insight into the social priorities and economic values of this class of freeholder at that time.

A different world indeed!

Towards an appreciation of Black British history today

There is growing appreciation of the scale and influence of people of colour in Georgian Britain. Even seemingly fanciful, fictionalised storylines and casting of Shonda Rhimes’ TV hit series Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story may reflect Georgian society more accurately than many once thought. Estimates suggest there were 20,000 people of colour in England in the 1760s. London in 1772 numbered 15,000, fully 5% of the imperial capital’s population. And a chance discovery in October 2024 moved back by 25 years the date when the first Black vote was cast in a British election. The place? Westminster. The man? Publican John London. The year? 1749.

Promotional material for the film ‘Belle’ released in 2013.

While October has become the principal time to celebrate Black British history, in common with many of my colleagues, I believe this subject demands focus throughout the entire year. Museums, galleries and cultural organisations such as English Heritage, Historic Houses Association and National Trust increasingly are engaging with these wider aspects of our rich, diverse history.

Bringing visitors to great cultural storehouses such as Kenwood House, I find that identifiable individuals help shine a spotlight on our understanding of those nuanced times and society today.

Dido and Carolina may be uneasy neighbours brought together by chance intersection of art collector and curator decades after their deaths, but digging into their stories brings to life their presence today at Kenwood House.

Come and discover for yourself! I’d be delighted to introduce you to more of the amazing stories of people inhabiting Kenwood and its collections.

About the author

As a local resident Mark King has enjoyed visiting Kenwood for many years. He has been supporting English Heritage as a volunteer Explainer at Kenwood since 2013 and sits on the council of the Friends of Kenwood. Before becoming a professionally qualified guide, Mark worked as an account manager in world-leading consumer advertising agencies, then in business development for corporate and commercial law firms. He wishes to apologise to readers of this blog for his uncontrollable predilection for classic British advertising slogans. See Mark’s other blogs here

Further information:

• Kenwood House 
• Dido
• Amma Asante
• Search ‘Lady Brisco’ on UCL’s Legacies of Slavery project’s website: www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
• Friends of Kenwood lecture by Tim Moore People of Colour in Enlightenment Britain
• Black England: A Forgotten Georgian History by Gretchen Gerzina
• Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga
• Black Tudors: The Untold Story by Miranda Kauffman
• John London, 1749 voter
• Friends of Kenwood