Celebrating the Women of Goodwood in a new exhibition

HerStory: Women of Goodwood runs from May 5-October 28 in the Long Hall of Goodwood House, placing a spotlight on some of the individual women connected with Goodwood and the Gordon Lennox family. By bringing together paintings, objects and textiles from the 17th to the 21st centuries, the exhibition will bring their stories to life. Highlights include dresses loaned by the Fashion Museum Bath, paintings by Angelica Kauffman and Sir Joshua Reynolds plus 300-year-old-documents.

It has been put together by Clementine de la Poer Beresford, curator of the Goodwood Collection: “We have quite a male-centric history here at Goodwood and there is nothing wrong with that but it's important to highlight that ever since the family arrived, there have been women that have played their part and I think it's really important to look at their stories. You often think about the dukes and that it is the dukes that built the art collection, and so the stories often revolve around them but there are wonderful stories too about the women who played an important part as well.”

Goodwood looked at those women around 20 years ago with an exhibition on the duchesses and also an exhibition called Aristocrats: “But since then we have not really focused on the women, and I felt it's time that we should. It's been long enough but also it is a particular interest of mine. I love Louise de Keroualle. My particular area of study is the 17th century. She was alive then and she is an example of a woman that wielded power and influence. And we have got some wonderful documents.”

The exhibition will showcase Letters Patent with the Great Seal granting Louise the equivalent of nearly £1,000,000 in today’s money annually. Louise was King Charles II’s favourite mistress from 1671 until his death in 1685, facilitating the King’s conversion to Catholicism on his deathbed. She was known as the “spy in the bedchamber” as she promoted French interests at the English Court. She was given more than 40 rooms by the King at Whitehall Palace.

It's a fascinating story to tell, as are so many others. The challenge is in telling them: “But we have been quite lucky. We have a wonderful collection of pictures which also show us the women of the family, and in our archives we have a lot of letters written by them. We have been able to bring quite a lot out of the archive. But I also really love historic textiles and I really wanted to display some of those. I feel that it's something that people can really relate to and so I sent out lots of emails to lots of museums asking if they had anything that related to the Gordon Lennox family.”

Bath Fashion Museum were able to oblige. You will be able to see in the exhibition the 1822 wedding dress worn by Lady Jane Peel on her marriage to Laurence Peel on July 20 1822. Jane was the daughter of the 4th Duke of Richmond, and Charlotte, Duchess of Richmond who hosted the famous Waterloo Ball. Laurence Peel was the younger brother of the Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel.

“Few objects relating to Jane survive, as is often the case with women of the past, and so the dress is a remarkable survival, allowing us a glimpse into her life and tastes.”

​The exhibition continues until October 28.