Old Photograph Jane Welsh Carlyle House Haddington Scotland

Old photograph of the Jane Welsh Carlyle house in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland. Jane Baillie Welsh was born here in 1801. Her father died when she was 18 and she became known as the Flower of Haddington, widely known for her beauty, intelligence and wit. In 1821, the then, unknown historian, writer and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, born 1795, died 1881, visited and met Jane, who later became his wife. She devoted the rest of her life to her husband and his work.Their long marriage was close but tempestuous, complicated by other relationships on both sides, though these appear to have been platonic, as their own was believed to have been. Jane had first been introduced to Thomas by her tutor, who was in love with her but unable to break his engagement. Her closest romantic relationship seems to have been with Geraldine Jewsbury, though she resented Jewsbury’s free love life. Jane’s many passionate letters to her caught the interest of Virginia Woolf.



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