Julia Mary CAREW (née LETHBRIDGE) (1863-1922)

Lady Julia Mary Carew (née Lethbridge) was supposedly a distant relative of Mela Brown Constable.  In a letter of 27th May 1915, Mela described her as “my Grandmother’s sister’s daughter, and a cousin of Uncle Harry’s”, but no connection has been found.

Julia Lethbridge was born on 9th October 1863 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the elder of two daughters of Albert Arthur Erin Lethbridge and his wife, Jane (née Hill).  At the time of the 1871 census, she was living with her grandparents, Robert and Julia Hill, and mother and sister at Melville House, St Helier, Jersey; by 1881 they were all living at 54 Inverness Terrace, Kensington.  There appears to be nothing to connect them to the Brown Constable family, other than the fact that she was once Uncle Harry’s fiancée.

According to Mela, “She was a beautiful girl, and was engaged to Uncle Harry for a bit and then her present husband came along and she threw her more humble suitor over … Grandma’s sister was a match-making mama, and all her 3 daughters made good marriages in a worldly sense.”  Mela seems to have got some of her facts muddled. 

The only grandmother Mela knew was Mary Christina Brown Constable (née Mackenzie), who was born in India in 1832 (her other grandmother in India died just before she was born).  Mary Brown Constable died in 1906 when Mela was 18, so Mela certainly knew her.  Mary also had two sisters, both of whom married and had daughters.  It is possible that Mela was getting confused with her grandmother’s sister, Annie Colina, who married Thomas Hamilton William Knolles; one of her daughters, Jane Isabella, was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1872.

Julia Lethbridge was engaged to Harry Brown Constable for a short time in about 1884 but then broke off the engagement.  On 27th June 1888 at St George’s, Hanover Square, Julia married Robert Shapland George Julian Carew; they had no children.

Lady Carew died at 28 Belgrave Square on 28th September 1922, aged 58.