Born the fourth illegitimate daughter of William IV of the United Kingdom (then Duke of Clarence and St Andrews) and Dorothea Jordan, she grew up at their Bushy House residence in Teddington.

Augusta FitzClarence was born at Bushy House, Teddington on 17 November 1803 as the fourth daughter of Prince William, Duke of Clarence and St Andrews by his long-time mistress, the famous comic actress Dorothea Jordan.

[4] While circumstances prevented the couple from ever marrying, for twenty years William and Dorothea enjoyed domestic stability and were devoted to their children.

Augusta's daughter Wilhelmina would later write that Bushy was "a happy and beloved home" until it "came to end" upon Prince William's marriage to Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen in 1818.

[6] He and Dorothea had parted ways in December 1811 under a deed of separation, the debt-ridden duke desiring to secure a rich wife.

She had suffered from ill health and possessed little money, having squandered the bulk of it on her eldest daughter Frances (fathered by another man).

[2] In 1819, Baron Franz Ludwig von Bibra, a German man with knowledge of the classics and English, was engaged to tutor the two youngest FitzClarence daughters.

[11] The following year, he made his eldest son George Earl of Munster, and had his issue by Jordan raised to the ranks of younger children of a marquess.

[2] John inherited his maternal grandfather's estate of Dun in Forfarshire, and as its châtelaine, Augusta was featured in Hugh Massingberd's Great Houses of Scotland.

[18] Augusta turned to her father for help, and he granted her apartments in Kensington Palace and the position of State Housekeeper (replacing her recently deceased sister Sophia).

[21] Both daughters married in 1855 in a double wedding, Wilhelmina to the 2nd Earl of Munster and Millicent to James Hay Erskine Wemyss.