Barbara Rawdon-Hastings, Marchioness of Hastings

Barbara Rawdon-Hastings, Marchioness of Hastings, 20th Baroness Grey de Ruthyn (née Yelverton; 20 May 1810 – 18 November 1858) was a fossil collector and geological author.

Early life Born at Brandon House in Brandon, Warwickshire, Barbara Yelverton was the only child of Henry Yelverton, 19th Baron Grey de Ruthyn (1780–1810), and of his wife, Anna Maria Kellam (1792–1875). Her father was a friend of "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" Lord Byron, who referred to the new bride as "a rustic". At seven months, her father's death made her Baroness Grey de Ruthyn. Little is known of her early life or education.

In 1817, she was living in Derbyshire, in the (now lost) stately home Castlefields, owned by the Borrow family.

Personal life On 1 August 1831, Lady Grey de Ruthyn married George Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Marquess of Hastings (1808–1844), and they had six children together: Paulyn Reginald Serlo Rawdon-Hastings, 3rd Marquess of Hastings (1832–1851), who died unmarried. Lady Edith Maud Rawdon-Hastings, later 10th Countess of Loudoun (1833–1874), who married Charles Frederick Abney-Hastings, 1st Baron Donington. Lady Bertha Lelgarde Rawdon-Hastings, later 22nd Baroness Grey de Ruthyn (1835–1887), who married Augustus Wykeham Clifton. Lady Victoria Maria Louisa Rawdon-Hastings (1837–1888) Henry Weysford Charles Plantagenet Rawdon-Hastings, 4th Marquess of Hastings (1842–1868), who married Lady Florence Paget, only daughter of Henry Paget, 2nd Marquess of Anglesey.

During her first marriage, Lady Hastings was nicknamed "the jolly fast marchioness", as she was fond of foreign travel and gambling. Her knowledge of local geology, especially of the Eocene, and her meticulous work on fossil remains, gave her an expertise which was respected by scholars. Lady Hastings associated with many eminent scientists during her lifetime, including Edward Forbes, Charles Lyell, Alexander Falconer, William Buckland and Richard Owen. The geologist Forbes referred to her as a "fossilist" and acknowledged her work. Sixty-four of her letters to and from Owen are preserved in the Natural History Museum's Richard Owen Collection.

Owen proposed to name her discovered crocodile fossil, recovered from the Barton Beds at Hordle Cliff in Hampshire, Crocodilus hastingsae (now Diplocynodon) to honour "the accomplished lady by whom the singularly perfect example of the species had been recovered and restored".

In 1858 she died in Rome and is buried there.