Harriet Fawkener (1750-1831) was the daughter of Sir Everard Fawkener, a silk merchant and British Ambassador to turkey, and Harriet Churchill, natural daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles Churchill, who was himself illegitimate, and a nephew of the 1st Duke of Marlborough. In 1764 she married Edward Bouverie (1738-1810), who was descended from a Huguenot family, and became MP for Salisbury and later Northampton. Harriet was considered a beauty and was a companion of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire; she joined Georgiana in campaigning for Charles James Fox. Harriet had three daughters and three sons: the youngest, Diana (born 19 September 1786) was in fact the daughter of married Lord Robert Spencer, son of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough. She lived for some time in a ménage à trois with her husband her lover. Shortly after Edward’s death in 1810, Harriet married Robert Spencer.One of the family estates was Teston park on the River Medway in Kent. A contemporary described it as follows: “Teston park pales adjoin the northern side of the Maidstone road, hence the park rises to Teston-house, which being of white stucco, is a conspicuous object to the neighbouring country, and with the adjoining grounds, some years since, were greatly ornamented and laid out in the modern taste by Mrs. Bouverie” [Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 5 (Canterbury, 1798), pp. 126-136]. Harriet was a supporter of the movement for the abolition of slavery. In two letters from Hannah More to her sister written in 1789, she says “Mr Wilberforce and the whole Junto of Abolitionists are still locked up at Teston; they are up slaving till two o’clock every morning” and “Mr Wilberforce and his myrmidons are still shut up at Mrs. Bouverie’s, at Teston, to write; I tell them I hope Teston will be the Runnymede of the negroes, and that the great charter of African liberty will be there completed.” (Memoirs of the Life & Correspondence of Mrs Hannah More, ed. by William Roberts, London: Seeley & Burnside, 1834, Vol 2, pp.154, 156).