These are four brooches from my collection, each with a “fame adjacent” history. The large one at right holds the hair of wealthy City of London merchant Jonathan Wilson and Ursula Pinckback Wilson, his wife. The small brooch on the left commemorates Sophia Vansittart, sister of Nicholas Vansittart, Baron Bexley, Chancellor of the Exchequer for King George IV.
The small blue enamel brooch holds the hair of Englishman Joshua Brooks, who dined at Mt. Vernon with George and Martha Washington, and the fourth, heart-shaped, is Scottish and holds the hair of Helen Clementina Duff Muir. Her sister was Lord Byron’s childhood sweetheart, Mary Duff Coe.
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"Your Dying Charlotte" 