FORGOTTEN WOMEN OF WAKEFIELD

of Thornes House

For the last two years, I have been researching the life and work of Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell, author, socialite and philanthropist for Dream Time Creatives project, the Forgotten Women of Wakefield.

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Strolling through Thornes Park past the old Wakefield College campus, there are few signs of the stately home that once stood in its place. The victim of a fire in 1951 following a school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the remains of the original Thornes House now boast only a single wall. The legacy of the house as a school lived on past the loss of the grand building, designed by Horbury architect John Carr. But what was also buried along with the original structure was a common knowledge of the family who once lived there; particularly its final resident: visionary author Lady Catherine Milnes Gaskell.

Until now, Lady Catherine’s achievements as a writer and highly respected literary socialite have been mostly forgotten in the city she dwelled for a large part of her 43 year marriage. Small traces of her can be found in Wakefield on information boards within, and books about, Thornes Park; however, none of them allude to the extraordinary life she led as an essayist, playwright and fiction author who published 9 books under her own name, nor her involvement in a literary circle which saw her host the likes of Henry James, Thomas Hardy and socialise with Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

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Lady Catherine was honoured with a blue plaque, on the Rose Garden Cottage in Thornes Park, as a result of the research in November 2020. The play Lady Catherine, written by Sarah Cobham and inspired by the research can be viewed in the videos below along with the blue plaque unveiling.

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