Walburga, Lady Paget

Walburga Ehrengarde Helena, Lady Paget (née Gräfin von Hohenthal; 3 May 1839 – 11 October 1929) was a German noblewoman, writer, socialite, occultist, lady in waiting and intimate friend of Queen Victoria.

Biography Portrait of a daughter, Alberta Victoria Sarah Caroline Paget by Joseph von Kopf. 1882. Museum named after M. A. Vrubel

Countess Walburga Ehrengarde Helena von Hohenthal was born in 1839 in Berlin, Germany. Member of the German noble House of Hohenthal, she was the daughter of Count Karl Friedrich Anton von Hohenthal and his second wife, Countess Emilie Neidhart von Gneisenau, granddaughter of Count August Neidhardt von Gneisenau. Before her marriage she was a lady-in-waiting to Victoria, Crown Princess of Prussia.

In 1860, she married Sir Augustus Berkeley Paget (1823–1896), member of the Paget family, British ambassador in Copenhagen, and later British Ambassador in Vienna, Portugal, Florence and Rome.

In 1929, at the age of ninety, she died of burns after falling asleep by the fire at Unlawater House, Newnham on Severn and was buried next to her husband at Tardebigge, Worcestershire. She authored the article "Vegetable Diet" in Nineteenth Century magazine in 1892. It was republished by The Popular Science Monthly in 1893. She explained her reasons as follows: I strongly condemn the practice, and do not eat flesh-food myself. Two or three years ago I had occasion to read up certain papers about the transport of cattle and slaughter-houses, and as I read the irresistible conviction came upon me that I must choose between giving up the eating of animal food and my peace of mind. These considerations were not the only ones that moved me. I do not think that anyone has a right to indulge in tastes which oblige others to follow a brutalizing and degrading occupation. When you call a man a butcher, it signifies that he is fond of bloodshed. Butchers often become murderers, and I have known cases where butchers have actually been hired to murder persons whom they did not even know... I was almost fully persuaded that the vegetable diet was the most healthful in every way, and my experience has proved it to be so.

However, Paget did consume eggs and fish so she was not a strict vegetarian. She also disagreed with the temperance movement as she took a glass of wine at dinner.

Mary Pope's vegetarian cookbook Novel Dishes for Vegetarian Households was dedicated to Paget. In 1893, Paget's chef made one or two meals from the cookbook a day for her. She commented that "I have found them quite exquisite, so much as that even meat-eaters prefer them to their usual fare". Scenes and Memories (1912) Embassies of Other Days (1923) In My Tower (1924) The Linings of Life (1929)