Edith (Russell) Playfair (1848-1932)

Her first husband, Lord Playfair, wrote in his memoirs: "In the autumn of 1877 I visited for the first time the United  States, the first of many subsequent visits to that country. On arriving at New York, I found an invitation to spend a week at Nahant, near Boston, at the house of Mr Russell. Mr S.H. Russell, with his wife and two daughters, had travelled in Europe in the summer of 1875, and I accidentally became acquainted with them at a table d'hôtes in an hotel at the Hague. This acquaintance ripened into a friendship, and three years later (1878) the eldest of the daughters, Miss Edith Russell, became my wife.  Through this family I at once became acquainted with the highly intellectual society of Boston. Longfellow, Emerson, Wendell Holmes, Lowell, Tom Appleton, and other men of light and leading I met at their house, forming many pleasant friendships for the future." They were married on October 3rd, 1878, and Playfair later recalled that Edith, "has been to me a constant source of support and sympathy, both in my private and public life. Probably few marriages have had so many literary celebrities as 'assistants,' for all the poets and philosophers to whom I have formerly alluded were present." Playfair was thirty years her senior and towards the end of his life he wrote that Edith had been "a capital nurse" to him. In 1901, three years after Playfair died, she married R. Fleming Crooks, of London. She died without children from either marriage.

She and her first husband were responsible for launching the future Lady Mary Curzon into London society. He died at their home, 68 Onslow Gardens, South Kensington, London. After her second marriage Edith lived between 72 South Audley Street in London and "Step Rock House" in St. Andrews, Fife, overlooking the golf course. Edith sat for two portraits by John Singer Sargent. The larger one (see images) was painted in 1886 and is now on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The smaller one was painted in 1884 and was in the possession of Professor Mason Hammond, of Cambridge, Massachusetts.