✖

Lydia Clibborn Pike (1821 - 1900)

Estate Value £163,142 16s 7d

A Lady's large estate

Tokens of Companionship

A Lady's Large Estate

Daily News Article 21st June 1900

Estate duty amounting to £15,495 9s 1d. at the rate of 6½ per cent,

has been paid on the estate valued at £163,142 16s 7d,

of Mrs. Lydia Clibborn Pike of Besborough, Cork,

who died on the 22nd March last, widow of Mr. Ebenezer Pike.

The testatrix devised all of her real estate, except Besborough and Ballimore,

to her sons Joseph and Ebenezer,

and she bequeathed to her son Robert Lecky Pike £10,000,

to her sons-in-law Richard Goodbody and Reginald Ryley of Croydon £1,000 each.

And to her daughters Annie Emily Pike and Florence Lilas Pike £20,000 each,

her household effects, cattle, horses and carriages, and the balance to her credit at the Bank of Ireland.

Among other bequests Mrs. Pike left to her two said daughters, Besborough House and her lands of Ballimore,

and she bequeathed to her daughters Sarah Louisa Strangman, Elizabeth Pike Goodbody and Henrietta Sophia Ryley £20,000 each,

to her daughter Mary Lecky Pease of Darlington, widow of Mr. Arthur Pease MP, £200 as a souvenir,

and to her son-in-law Thomas Wilson Strangman £1,000.

Return to top

Tokens Of Companionship

Copyright Brad Purinton 2020

The name "L.C. Pike" is written on the back of this carte-de-visite. Generally a name on the back of a portrait refers to the sitter, but not always, so it's important to try to find corroborating information. I searched on Ancestry for an L.C. Pike who was about forty years old in the early 1860's and living in Cork, Ireland. Only one came up, so I'm optimistic she may be the right person.

Lydia Clibborn Pike was born into a Quaker family in September 1821 in historic County Tyrone, in what is today Northern Ireland. She married Ebenezer Pike (not a close relation) in Cork when she was nineteen years old and he was almost 35. They were married 42 years, until his death in 1883. They had at least nine children who survived to adulthood. She died at the age of 88, in March 1900, in Bessborough, County Cork.

The photograph was taken at the studio of Edward J. Harding & Son, Portrait Painters & Photographists. Edward J. Harding (1804-1870) is listed as a "Portrait Painter" in A Dictionary of Irish Artists (1913).

This is my first blog post featuring a portrait from Ireland. After more than a year, the blog has yet to receive a visitor from the Emerald Isle. I do hope Lydia Clibborn will change that.

Update on June 5: I've zoomed in on the flower and fern, below. I hadn't noticed the fern until it was pointed out by astute visitors yesterday!

I also zoomed in as far as possible on the ring hanging at the end of the chain. There does appear to be something else attached to the ring... maybe a key?

Finally, I'm pleased to report that the blog received its first visitor from Ireland (Eire) yesterday, after this post was published.

Return to top