10 children and 12,000 pieces of art: the remarkable life of Lady Charlotte Schreiber

She was a headstrong scholar who contributed hugely to the study of medieval literature and challenged the societal norms of the 19th century. So why isn’t she better known? Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth traces the adventures of an unsung heroine

A digital collage featuring a Victorian-era woman in formal dress at the centre. Behind her are layered images including industrial smokestacks, ornate patterns, playing cards, and text from the book “The Mabinogion” by Lady Charlotte Guest. The overall style blends historical portraiture with abstract and industrial elements.

Published: February 20, 2026 at 3:30 PM

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While hunting for antiques in the Netherlands in the 1880s, the esteemed art dealer Joseph Joel Duveen received a tip-off that some “wonderful pieces of china” had come up for sale in a remote village. Getting there would involve a tediously long journey but, undeterred, Duveen set out.

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Several hours later, however, he spotted a carriage speeding past in the opposite direction, and was able to make out its passenger. Recognising the face of his great rival, Duveen promptly turned around, empty-handed, ruefully realising that she had beaten him to the village and “snatched the prize”. The victor on this occasion was Lady Charlotte Schreiber.

Surprisingly, given her long life – she was 82 when she died, in 1895 – which included two marriages, 10 children, scandalous affairs and a celebrated translation of the medieval Welsh Mabinogion, Lady Charlotte remains relatively unknown today. Often erroneously dismissed as a mere magpie obsessed with trinkets, for decades her second husband and sons were credited for accumulating her great collection. Yet, shortly before her death, she donated a trove of some 5,000 pieces to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) and the British Museum.

Defiance and scandal

Charlotte endured a difficult childhood. Born Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Bertie in 1812, she lost her father, the 9th Earl of Lindsey, when she was only six years old. Her mother remarried, and her new stepfather, the Reverend Peter Pegus, turned out to be a violent alcoholic; he once drank a whole mug of lamp oil, mistaking it for beer.

At the age of 10, Charlotte started keeping a diary, in which she wrote almost every day until she lost her eyesight in her late seventies. A true polymath, she gave herself “a man’s education”, studying history and literature, and learning Arabic and Farsi (Persian) as well as Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian and even Hebrew. She dedicated hours to her “oriental studies”, devouring Barthélemy d’Herbelot de Molainville’s monumental 1697 compendium Bibliothèque Orientale, and later became a subscriber to the Oriental Translation Fund. To a young woman frustrated by her privileged yet undeniably restrained upbringing, the ‘Orient’ represented an imagined place of freedom where the stagnant and gendered traditions of elite British life did not exist.

Throughout her years, Charlotte defied the strict protocols of Georgian and Victorian society, causing various scandals. As a teenager she fell in love with a local squire, Augustus O’Brien, but her mother “had sooner see me in my grave than married to Augustus”. She also had a dalliance with her brother’s tutor, a Mr Martin, and shortly after became “very good friends” with Benjamin Disraeli, whom she described as “wild, enthusiastic, and very poetical”.

A historical-style painting of a large industrial complex with many smokestacks releasing thick smoke into the sky. Several furnaces glow with open flames. In the foreground, workers shovel coal and operate machinery, surrounded by carts and industrial equipment. The scene conveys the intensity, pollution, and harsh labor conditions of early industrialisation.

A painting of the Dowlais Ironworks, where Charlotte and her husband Josiah oversaw the management of over 5,000 employees (Image by Alamy)

In 1833, Charlotte married Welsh ironmaster and Whig politician Josiah John Guest. Although he was 27 years her senior, the two fell madly in love and had 10 children. Together they oversaw the day-to-day management of the Dowlais ironworks and its 5,000-plus employees. Charlotte managed the financial accounts, translated engineering manuals, established evening schools for the workers and their families, and even conducted business meetings.

By 1839, she observed that she had successfully “schooled myself into habits of business that it is more congenial to me to calculate the advantage of half percent commission on a cargo of iron than to go to the finest ball in the world”.

Welsh legend

Charlotte’s marriage to John – whom she called Merthyr, Welsh for ‘martyr’ – gave her the freedom she so desperately craved. She used her autonomy to embrace her passion for history, carrying out archaeological excavations at ruins such as Morlais Castle in Glamorgan, where she discovered medieval seals and coins. Inspired by her “violent affection for Welsh castles”, Charlotte became a founding member of the Cymdeithas Cymreigyddion y Fenni (Abergavenny Welsh Society), encouraging the use of the Welsh language among all social classes. Resolving to outwardly demonstrate a sense of Welsh patriotism befitting her new social position, she wore traditional Welsh dress, taught herself medieval Welsh and received the Bardic name ‘Olwen’ – a famous protagonist from Welsh folklore.

A black and white photograph of two women dressed in long dresses with aprons over the top, tall black hats and shawls around their shoulders. One is standing in front of a spinning wheel, and the other is to the left behind it, standing in a doorway

This photograph shows women in traditional Welsh dress, which Charlotte adopted on marriage to Welshman John Guest (Image by Alamy)

While still in her twenties, Charlotte began the colossal task of writing an English translation of the Llyfr Coch Hugest (Red Book of Hergest), a compilation of medieval Welsh ballads and oral traditions including the tales known as the Mabinogion. It was not a straightforward undertaking. Contemporaries were concerned that the work would not be taken seriously if translated by a woman, never mind an English one, and she suspected that her Welsh teachers were passing her translations on to others.

Her fears were realised when the French writer Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué tried to publish her translation of the Mabinogion story Peredur, passing it off as his own work. Determined to thwart his plans, Charlotte poured all her energy into completing her version. At one point she worked on it for 12 hours straight, taking a break only to give birth to her fifth child. Thanks to these monumental efforts, she published her Mabinogion in seven parts between 1838 and 1845 to great acclaim.

In the 1840s Charlotte began to assemble an art collection, seeking out works from the great European schools of the Renaissance. Her purchases included a piece by a follower of the great 16th-century portraitist Hans Holbein the Younger, which she acquired in 1842 at the ‘Great Sale’ of the celebrated 18th-century gossip and socialite Horace Walpole’s estate of Strawberry Hill, near London.

Her husband, John Guest, died in 1852, and the following year Charlotte hired Charles Schreiber (1826–1884), a young Cambridge academic, to tutor her eldest son. They initially attempted to hide their affair, but it wasn’t long before Charlotte appeared with her hair dyed brown – likely to diminish the couple’s 14-year age gap – and announced their engagement. Court cases ensued, and only three of her 10 children attended the wedding.

An open book showing a colour illustration of ornate Persian glassware on the left page and a title page on the right. The illustration depicts a tall decorative bottle with a stopper and two matching cups, all with intricate floral and bird designs. The title page lists bibliographic details for “Lady Charlotte Schreiber’s Journals,” including publication information and handwritten catalog markings.

The opening page from a copy of Lady Charlotte Schreiber’s Journals, which was originally published in 1911, detailing all 12,000 objects that Charlotte had collected (Image by Common Crow Books)

Making a mark

With newfound joie de vivre, Charlotte spent the next few decades travelling the world with Charles, dedicating herself to forming the greatest collection of ‘ceramic art’ ever seen. She acquired more than 12,000 objects, all of which she numbered and recorded in her journal. Armed with a red velvet bag, she often spent upwards of seven hours per day in search of objects, particularly European and Asian ceramics. Back at home in London she meticulously researched everything she’d bought, transcribed archives and documentary sources, and even got her hands dirty assisting with excavations at archaeological sites.

Charlotte approached collecting just as she did everything else in her life – with an unyielding commitment to the pursuit of knowledge, and an ever-growing desire to succeed and make her mark on the world. As a committed cultural philanthropist, she believed in the educational power of museums and, after Charles’ death, declared her collection “the property of the nation”. From 1885 until her death 10 years later, she gave thousands of pieces to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) and the British Museum – unprecedented bequests for a woman collector.

At a social gathering one evening in the 1840s, Charlotte was perusing the ‘finest London ladies’ featured in Heath’s Book of Beauty for 1839 – an annual of contemporary fashion and style. A fellow guest, seeing that Charlotte was not listed among the women, commented that “not all the fairies are present; the Welsh fairy Olwen is missing”. “She was not a fairy,” Charlotte replied, “she was a Goddess.” Here’s to that.

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This article was first published in the February 2026 issue of HistoryExtra magazine

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