Lady Harriet Acland

Lady Harriet Acland (née Fox-Strangways; 3 January 1750 – 21 July 1815) was a British noblewoman, nurse, and diarist.

She began life as Lady Christian Henrietta Caroline Fox-Strangways, the daughter of Stephen Fox-Strangways, 1st Earl of Ilchester. In 1770, at the age of twenty, she married John Dyke Acland. She travelled with her husband to the Canadas and the Thirteen Colonies when he commanded the 20th Regiment of Foot. She and her husband had a daughter, Elizabeth (13 December 1772 – 5 March 1813), who married Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Carnarvon.

At the time of the Battles of Saratoga, during the American Revolutionary War, Lady Harriet heard that her husband had been wounded and travelled through the rebel lines to find him. Her husband, who had been shot through both legs, improved with her careful nursing. The next year they returned to England, where Colonel Acland died at Pixton Park on 31 October 1778. Surviving him for many years, she died, aged 65, at Tetton, near Taunton.

Sources

• Acland, Lady Harriet. The Acland Journal: Lady Harriet Acland and the American Revolution. Winchester, England: Hampshire County Council, 1993.
• Young Folks Cyclopedia, 1882
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