Dudleya North
The Hon. Dudleya North was an English aristocrat, orientalist, linguist and classical scholar.
Early life
Dudleya North was born at the house of her father Charles North, 5th Baron North in Leicester Fields in London. Her mother Catherine was a daughter of the first Baron Grey of Werke and Dudleya was a granddaughter of Dudley North, 4th Baron North. Her brother was the soldier and Jacobite William North, the 6th Baron North. Four years before the death of her grandfather, her father had been created a peer in his own right and summoned to the House of Lords as Baron Grey of Rolleston.She came of a more intellectual family than most aristocratic families of the day. Her uncle Francis North became Lord Chancellor as Lord Guilford, while other uncles were Sir Dudley North, an economist, John North, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Roger North, a historian.
The younger of two daughters, at a young age she had a desire for learning and, unusually for the time, she was educated privately alongside her brothers by their tutors. A water colour portrait of her aged 15 from 1690 painted by Edmund Ashfield is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.