Duchess of Devonshire

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia
Duchess of Devonshire, by Thomas Gainsborough

Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire (7 June 1757 - 30 March 1806) was the first wife of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, and mother of the 6th Duke of Devonshire. She became notorious for her marital arrangements, her catastrophic love affairs, and her love of gambling; she was famous for her beauty and her political campaigning; and she was a leader of fashionable style.


In the Sherlock Holmes stories

  • Watson described Mary Sutherland as a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess-of-Devonshire fashion over her ear. (IDEN, 35)