Margaret Clive


Margaret Clive, Baroness Clive was a British society figure. She went out to India to meet an admirer and married a military hero. She was in Bengal as their family became incredibly wealthy. When they returned to England the aristocracy did not welcome "new money".

Life

Clive was born in Kensington Gore in London in 1735, the youngest of four children born to Elizabeth and Edmund Maskelyne. Her elder brother was the Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne. She lived at home until she was about thirteen when her mother died, and she was sent to stay with relatives in Wiltshire, where she started school when she was about fourteen. Mrs Saintsbury of Cirencester taught her and she was gifted at French.
She went out to India at the suggestion of her brother Edmund with the intention of chasing Robert Clive, who was a colleague. When she set out he was a man who reportedly had fallen in love with her portrait; when she arrived Robert Clive was a hero. Her voyage was not in vain as she married him at St. Mary's Church in Madras on 18 February 1753. They returned to England, but they returned in 1755 for five years as the British East India Company consolidated its position in Bengal.
Her husband died in 1774. She had to find a home. In 1781 the owner of Englefield House and estate in Berkshire was short of money and decided to rent the house. The rent was set for 400 guineas p.a. but it was let to her for 300 as the owner was keen to find the right tenant who would not interfere with the house's character too much. The house was rented complete with a deer park, three manors and with a library of thousands of pounds' worth of books.
Clive died in Oakly Park, Bromfield, Shropshire, in 1817.

Family

She and Robert Clive had nine children: