Description
Mrs, Thomas Richmond (née Anne Oram / 1772-1859.) Wife of Thomas Richmond (miniature painter), mother of George Richmond, R.A., and grandmother to Sir William Blake Richmond. Anne was known far and wide for her beauty. Her father kept an Inn at Kew Green and her mother died when she was young.
As an old lady she remembered the burning of Newgate during the Gordon riots and was taken to see Lord Gordon in prison. After her marriage she often saw Lord Nelson at Portsmouth, in which town her husband practised his art as a miniature painter. She also knew Shelley, who had lodged in the same house with her in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly.
A year before Anne died she gave a true and first hand account of a ghost story to her then, 16 year old grandchild, W B Richmond. After her mothers death her father immediately left the city and moved to Chelsea. At the back of their new house was a large and neglected garden which was used by their Newfoundland dog, and the children for games. One day while the children were playing “catch who catch can,” Anne’s brother, who was leading, came to some steps descending into a kind of hole; Anne followed but at the bottom of the steps there stood their mother, saying nothing but standing there in the attitude of pushing them back. Shocked by their dead mothers appearance they retreated immediately. When they told their father what had happened he sent them to bed for what he considered to be a monstrous lie. A few days after, the Newfoundland dog went missing; a search for him was made in the garden, and it was found that he had made his way down those same steps, had trodden upon some rotten planks overgrown with weeds, fallen into a covered well, and drowned.
Anne died in John Giles’ house where she had lived for some years.
