I was intrigued to find this “Free Front” in an album I recently acquired. It is a fragment from a letter, showing an address and a double-ring type FREE handstamp, in red. Dated 1835, it predates the Penny Post and first GB postage stamps by 5 years. A Free Front is such a remnant of a piece of post which was sent according to the free franking arrangement, whereby privileged members of society (members of parliament etc.) were granted the right to send post through the normal mail system without charge. They are interesting items of GB postal history because the correspondents are often notable personalities.

Beautiful Countess Katy

The recipient is the Countess Dundonald, Katherine (“Katy”) Frances Corbet Barnes, wife of the 10th Earl of Dundonald.

In 1812, Thomas Cochrane married Katy, a beautiful orphan who at just 16 was about twenty years younger than him. They had met through Cochrane’s cousin Nathaniel who at the time was a Royal Navy commander who later rose to the rank of rear-admiral and wrote a book on chess! 

The marriage was an elopement and a civil ceremony, due to the opposition of wealthy uncle Basil, who disinherited his nephew as a result. Uncle Basil made his fortune through the East India Company and as well as his business interests he was an inventor and pioneer of steam bath therapy.

In the portrait of Lady Dundonald, she appears with her daughter Elizabeth. She had two daughters, Elizabeth Katherine who died in infancy and Katherine Elizabeth. Which is a typical pattern of the time in re-using the name of a deceased child. We do not know the date of the portrait.

The Sea Wolf

We don’t know (yet) the sender of the latter from which this free front survives, but a candidate is Countess Dundonald’s husband, who as an MP between 1806 and 1818. So he would certainly have enjoyed the privilege of free franking at that time. But I do not know if he retained that special right after he left office, or whether he would have been entitled due to his accession to the Earldom or later as a high-ranking naval officer.

Le Loup des Mers was the nickname given to Thomas Cochrane by Napoleon, no less. Such was the reputation of this colourful and successful naval commander, serving with the Chilean, Brazilian and Greek navies as well as the British Royal Navy, where he eventually rose to the rank of Admiral of the Red.

But his distinction in military service was mixed with a stained reputation because of a scandal. He was tarnished with association with the Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814, in which false news of Napoleon’s death was circulated, which caused share prices to rise steeply, and half a dozen people made large profits from selling stock at a falsely inflated prize. Cochrane was named as a co-conspirator in the hoax and fraud, and subsequently fined, imprisoned, pilloried and stripped of his knighthood. It took decades for his reputation to be restored, and his ranks and honours to be re-conferred, but doubt over his involvement is still a matter for historical debate. (A serving MP involved in a financial scandal? Surely unthinkable now!)

Lord and Lady Loggerheads

In his letters to her, Cochrane called Katherine “Kate,” “Kitty,” or “Mouse”. Not only do these endearments and their six children give the impression of a devoted and committed couple, but she also often accompanied her husband on his extended campaigns in South America and Greece. Her affair with Lord Auckland while in Greece, may have clouded the domestic bliss. Cochrane and Katherine remarried in the Churches of England and Scotland in 1818 and 1825 respectively, and these multiple ceremonies led some to speculate that their first child, Thomas Barnes Cochrane, later the 11th Earl Dundonald, had been illegitimate.

From 1831 when the Earl returned from his maritime adventures in Greece until 1839 when they separated, Lord and Lady were at loggerheads over money: his costly inventions and her extravagant socialising. This period includes 1835 when our letter was sent to the Countess. His Lordship’s patents include a tunnelling shield used in digging the Thames Tunnel (Wapping to Rotherhide), the first airlock, applications of asphalt and several devices to improve steamships. Katy moved to northern France where she died in 1865, five years after her estranged husband.

This excursion began with just a scrap of paper in an old stamp album, but could this free front have been correspondence between the Earl and Countess? I wonder what bone of contention might have been under discussion in this letter?

Links & Sources

• Free Franks | National Postal Museum (si.edu) – the Smithsonian National Postal Museum website (USA) has a nice introductory article on Free Franks, together with a variety of examples, including from UK postal history.
• Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald – Wikipedia
• See also Regency Personalities Series-Thomas Cochrane 10th Earl of Dundonald | The Things That Catch My Eye (wordpress.com)
• Cochrane, Thomas 10th Earl of Dundonald in the Dictionary of National Biography – sadly Katy does not get a DNB entry of her own.