Portrait miniature by
Robert Thorburn (
c. 1840–45)Portrait by unidentified painter
Charlotte Mary Hood, Baroness Bridport, 3rd Duchess of Bronte (néeNelson; 20 September 1787 – 29 January 1873) was an English aristocrat who inherited an Italian dukedom and estate between
Bronte and
Maniace in Sicily.
As the niece and heiress of Admiral
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, Lady Bridport succeeded, suo jure, to the title of
Duchess of Bronte (of the
Kingdom of Two Sicilies) upon the death of her father in 1835. While she inherited her father's Sicilian dukedom, his British titles descended by
special remainder, together with his British estates, to his nephew
Thomas Bolton, who assumed the surname "Nelson" in accordance with the terms of the bequest.
She also inherited the Castello di Nelson, a grand
manor house built by
Horatio Nelson, and its large estate between
Bronte and
Maniace in Sicily[3] on the north-west foothills of
Mount Etna, held by her descendants until 1982. Her father found the local inhabitants were "turbulent, restless people" troublesome to the management of the estate, and like his brother the Admiral he never set foot in it.[4]
^"Redlynch House and park, 25 acres, was bought before 1833 by William, Earl Nelson, and used by his son-in-law Samuel Hood, Baron Bridport. It had been sold by 1837 to Thomas William Coventry". (A P Baggs, Elizabeth Crittall, Jane Freeman and Janet H Stevenson, 'Parishes: Downton', in A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 11, Downton Hundred; Elstub and Everleigh Hundred, ed. D A Crowley (London, 1980), pp. 19-77
[1])
^
abcG.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes,
Gloucester:
Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume II, page 318.