Alice Dryden

His daughter received a "smattering" of education of the kind considered suitable for girls of the "squirearchy" class, according to an obituary.

Dryden and Jourdain added chapters and photographs to Fanny Bury Palliser’s 1865 book, History of Lace.

The updated and expanded version was well reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement which commented on the "good use" made of "modern photographic methods".

[3] This new History of Lace, "entirely revised, re-written, and enlarged under the editorship of M. Jourdain and Alice Dryden" came out in 1901 and was republished several times between then and 1984.

Dryden was Honorary Secretary of the Northamptonshire Home Arts and Industries Association which encouraged a revival of lace-making and other crafts.

In the 1880s and 1890s she was also active in the Primrose League,[2] an organisation supporting Conservative principles, which held summer fairs in the grounds of big houses like Canons Ashby.

In 1911 she also published a book on Church Embroidery including photographs, which ran to two further editions, and one on the history of the Grey family of Groby.

[8] Photographs taken by Dryden are held in the archives of Historic England[9] and the Conway Library at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Alice Dryden in about 1890.
Alice Dryden's Lancaster camera on show in her old bedroom at Canons Ashby House.
Flemish bobbin-made tape lace, 17th century, photographed by Alice Dryden.
Primrose League "grand fete and gala" at Canons Ashby, advertised in 1891.