The history of Betsey Wynne

Farm News

“After the wettest harvest ever, the farm has at last finished harvest. The final crop to bring in to the barn was field beans, which although wet were of fairly good quality. Normally these go for animal feed, but may well be good enough for export to the Middle East (probably Egypt) for human consumption.

Most of the crops were extremely wet, so we had to work through the night to harvest the wheat (culminating in a fire in the grain store, bravely extinguished by farm staff before the fire brigade arrived)! We are now busy ‘working down’ the ground for next years crops. We have already planted next years oilseed rape, but this has all rotted in the ground, due to the wet weather, or been eaten by slugs, so will be replaced by oats or beans.

The sheep and cattle are well. At least the wet weather has meant lush grass growth, so with a fair autumn, the cattle should be able to stay out in the fields for quite a while. We have scanned the cows, and nearly all which have run with the bull are in calf.”

The new pub is named after Betsey Wynne who bought the Estate in 1798 with her husband Admiral Thomas Fremantle.  Betsey was an adventurous and lively lady who was much loved in the village and played an important role in the development of Swanbourne.  She is equally renown for her record of the time in her extracts in the well known Wynne Diaries.

Betsey's story is remarkable. Her father, Richard Wynne, a friend of Casanova, was a charming and irresponsible rogue. In 1786 he sold his estate in Lincolnshire, and spent the rest of his life travelling with his five daughters including Betsey and an entourage of servants, horses and dogs.  However when the French invaded Italy in 1796, Wynne fled south with his family to Leghorn to seek the protection of the British fleet. The family boarded a frigate commanded by a certain Thomas Fremantle, one of Nelson's trusted 'Band of Brothers'. Betsey, then 18-years-old, immediately fell in love with the young officer, finding his 'fiery black eyes quite captivating'.

Fremantle, however, was more cautious, describing Betsey as 'short', 'not particularly handsome' but otherwise 'a very good humoured sensible dolly'.  Yet Betsey proved more beguiling than Thomas bargained for and her vivacity and tomboy charms finally overcame him. They were married in Naples at the house of the British minister, William Hamilton, whose wife, Emma, later became Nelson's celebrated mistress. Betsey was given away by Prince Augustus, the youngest son of George III.

Betsey proved a good match for Fremantle and enjoyed spending time at sea with him. Within a few months, though, she almost lost both her husband and Lord Nelson. The occasion was an ill-fated attack against the Spanish at Santa Cruz, during which Nelson and Thomas were hit in their right arms by musket balls. Nelson's arm was amputated but Fremantle's limb, wrapped in a poultice, was saved.

"God Bless you and Fremantle" Nelson wrote to Betsey the following day, words which are thought to be the first penned by the now one-armed admiral with his left hand.

On their return from Spain in 1798, Betsey and Thomas moved to Swanbourne and the Fremantle family have lived there ever since. It was a happy marriage and the couple produced ten children. Their first son, Thomas, became an MP and the 1st Lord Cottesloe, while the third son, Charles, sailed to Australia and had the port of Fremantle named in his honour.

Sadly, Thomas senior, who distinguished himself at the Battle of Trafalgar and was later promoted to admiral, died suddenly of a fever in Naples while only in his mid-50s. Betsey remained a widow for over 30 years but continued to live life to the full in Swanbourne and was hugely popular. She also kept on writing her famous diaries which she had first started as a 10-year-old girl travelling through Italy and only stopped a few years before her death, aged 80, in 1857.  The historian Christopher Hibbert recently praised Betsey as: "one of the most amusing and illuminating diarists of her age," a fitting tribute to one of Swanbourne's most inspiring characters.