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company of her colourful, bohemian friends when on 6th November 1884 her life was turned upside down. George Vane-Tempest, Fifth Marquess of Londonderry, died whilst he and his wife, Mary Cornelia, were staying at their house in Wales. His widow, the Dowager Marchioness, was heartbroken. She announced her intention of never returning to London again and settled down to spend the rest of her days in widow’s weeds in her childhood home.
    Elizabeth was faced with a stark choice: remain with her mistress and be condemned to a life of quiet service looking after an ageing and reclusive woman in a house that would never again echo to the sounds of parties and laughter or – what? She could have returned to London and no doubt have obtained another post as a lady’s maid, although whether her employer would have assisted her in light of what she may have viewed as disloyalty is debateable. But then another opportunity presented itself.
    Within days, it seems, of the Marquess’s death Elizabeth was installed in the Maundrells’ upper-class French brothel in Kensington and enjoying a life such as she personally had never experienced. In order to appeal to the rich clientele the girls were dressed in the latest French fashions and encouraged to adopt French names and manners. Whether any of the customers, which included many well-travelled and sophisticated men from Mayfair and Belgravia, were actually fooled is questionable but it added to the mystique and allure of the sisters’ establishment. It is not known what name Elizabeth adopted but Marie Jeanette is as likely as any other. In the few weeks that she remained in the ‘gay house’, as such places were euphemistically known, Elizabeth revelled in wearing the expensive gowns that her employers provided and riding out in Hyde Park in their carriage, provided no doubt as an effective way of showing off the merchandise.
    It ended, abruptly, sometime in December of 1884 when a man, some 20 years older than she was, came into her life. Francis Spurzheim Craig may have been a client of the Maundrells’ French brothel but in light of what was to follow it seems more likely that Elizabeth met him elsewhere, most probably at one of William Morris’s Sunday soirées at his riverside house in Hammer-smith. Morris was a giant of Victorian society. A highly successful artist, writer, designer and a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he was also a left-leaning politician who became the focus of what would eventually become the Socialist movement. Whilst himself living in opulence – in his country house, Kelmscott Manor in Gloucestershire, and his London residence, Kelmscott House in Hammersmith – Morris railed against poverty and inequality. He frequently travelled to the East End, the most squalid part of the capital, and addressed left-wing meetings at places like the International Working Men’s Educational Club in Berner Street, Whitechapel.
    He also surrounded himself with a bohemian mixture of writers, artists, poets and political activists for whom he held regular Sunday evening meetings at Kelmscott House. Amongst the Morris set were writers such as Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells; artists including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Aubrey Beardsley; musicians such as Gustav Holst and political figures like Friedrich Engels, Sidney Webb and Eleanor Marx, daughter of themore famous Karl. The Maundrells may well have been part of the group for they were certainly friendly with others that were, including the artist Walter Sickert and the journalist and playwright George Robert Sims 31 . Another regular attendee was a serious-minded political thinker called E.T. Craig.

CHAPTER FOUR
The Phrenologist’s Son
    Edward Thomas Craig lived near to Morris in Hammersmith, although in a much more humble dwelling. At over 80 he was nearing the end of his political life but in his youth he had been one of the founders of the Co-operative movement and a