Seymour [née Alston; other married names Grimston; Hare], Sarah, Duchess of Somerset

Person

Seymour [née Alston; other married names Grimston; Hare], Sarah, Duchess of Somerset

1631–1692

Sarah was the daughter of Edward Alston of London, physician, President of the College of Physicians, who was knighted by King Charles II at the Restoration in 1660, and his wife Susanna, daughter of Christopher Hudson of Norwich and widow of Jasper Hussey, fishmonger of Billingsgate. Sarah married in 1652 George Grimston, son of barrister and politician Sir Harbottle Grimston. George Grimston died three years later and their two children died in infancy. Sarah married, secondly, Lord John Seymour, son and heir of the second Duke of Somerset. Unlike her first marriage, this was a marriage of convenience by which Seymour benefitted financially and Sir Edward gained entrance into the circle of the aristocracy; it was an unhappy match. Her marriage settlement did allow for a measure of financial independence, with £300 per annum set aside for her sole use, a wise precaution given the Somerset family's financial difficulties and her husband's gambling addiction. Following Somerset's death in 1675, Sarah was permitted to retain her title and her control of her late husband's estates in Herefordshire. In 1682 she married Henry Hare, second Baron Coleraine, again through the marriage settlement retaining some financial autonomy. She died in 1692.

Sarah, Duchess of Somerset, was a generous benefactor who endowed scholarships at Brasenose College, Oxford, and St John's College, Cambridge, through gifts of land for the purpose, and in her will left further bequests to both Colleges to fund places for scholars from free schools intent upon entering the ministry. She left legacies to two schools, a bequest of £1000 for poor boys to gain apprenticeships, and land and money to found and maintain an almshouse for poor widows in Froxfield, Wiltshire.

Howard Tomlinson: Seymour [née Alston; other married names Grimston; Hare], Sarah, duchess of Somerset, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/106715 (2014)