User:Patricia O'Reilly/Kathleen Newton (1874-1882)

Kathleen Newton nee Kelly (1854-1882) was brought up in Lahore and Agra. She was descended from an Irish catholic medical family. Her father, Charles Frederick Ashburnham Kelly joined the East India Company in Lahore. Her mother was Flora Boyd from the North of Ireland. They had three children Frederick WD (Freddie), Mary Pauline (Polly) and Kathleen Irene (Kate). Around the time of the Sepoy Rising of 1858, Kelly was transferred to Agra where he rose to the rank of chief adjutant and accountant officer. He retired to London in mid 1860s. He made a match for 17 year old Kate in India with Isaac Newton, a surgeon with the Indian Civil Service. On the journey outwards to be married Captain Palliser became obsessed with her beauty but did not succeed in his seduction. After the marriage in January 1870 and before consummation, Kate - on the advice of her Catholic confessor - explained to Isaac the situation regarding the captain. Believing her to be ‘damaged goods’, Isaac instituted divorce proceedings and sent her back to England. The captain paid for her passage, the deal being that in return she would become his mistress. She became pregnant but refused to marry Palliser. Her daughter Muriel VM Newton was born in Yorkshire on 20 December 1871 on the same day as her Decree Nisi came through. Kate and Violet went to live with Polly and her husband at Hill Road, St John’s Wood. In March 1876 Kate gave birth to her son Cecil George Newton Ashburnham. French painter Jacques Tissot is believed to be the father. Following his involvement in the events of the Paris commune in 1871, he moved to London, changed his name to James and settled in St John’s Wood. Kate moved into no 17 Grove End Road (now re-numbered 44). She was the love of his life, his mistress and muse. She sat for innumerable paintings with the grounds and interior of Grove End Road as backdrops, such as: ‘Holyday’, ‘A Type of Beauty’; ‘Kathleen Newton at the Piano’, ‘Mrs Newton with a Parasol’. He called her Mavourneen and ravissante Irlandaise, and was fascinated by the conflict of her Irish catholic background, divorce and status of unmarried mother of two children. Tissot was one of the most commercially successful painters of the day and described their life as ‘domestic bliss’. When Kate contacted TB, she was unable to watch his grief as the disease took hold. She overdosed on laudenham and died in November 1882. Tissot sat by her coffin for four days. Because of her suicide and religion, she was buried in un-consecrated ground in Kensal Green Cemetery.