Catherine Walters

Catherine Walters, also known as Skittles ( born June 13, 1839 in Liverpool, † August 4, 1920 in Mayfair, London) was a British fashion trendsetter and was next to Alice Keppel as one of the last great courtesans during the Victorian era.

Life

Catherine Walters was born as the third of five children of the customs officer Edward Walters ( † 1864) and his wife, Mary Ann Fowler. Catherine was nicknamed Skittles because she worked at a bowling alley. At the age of 20, she went to London, possibly as the mistress of her many admirers.

Walters was soon a well-known figure in London society, in part because of their skills as excellent horsewoman. So Skittles belonged to the company of the then famous tour de force rider Bay Middleton, Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster and the Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the fox hunts in Scotland. The English landscape and animal painter Sir Edwin Landseer 1861 Walters portrayed in one of his paintings, The Taming of the Shrew ( The Taming of the Shrew ), and showed it as a young woman who tames a spirited horse.

Were among her lovers, among others, the Marquess of Hartington, which they followed even to New York City during the American Civil War; furthermore the French Emperor Napoleon III. ; The Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII, the British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (or even friendship) and the poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Although the affair with Blunt was quite short, he remained obsessed with her for the rest of his life. In addition, they had the enormous advantage that it was extremely discreet and loyal to their benefactors. Financial worries had Catherine Walters after their retreat (1890) from the life of a courtesan not. Your connections could use it for business relations and investment, so that she was a wealthy society lady soon.

Catherine Walters died in her townhouse on the consequences of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 81 years. Their remains were buried in the cemetery of the Franciscan monastery in Crawley. Her grave bears the inscription. August In loving memory of CWB Died 4, 1920 The initials refer to the fact that Walters was married in the 1870s with the Scots Alec Baillie. However, no marriage certificate was found; so it is possible that for Baillie, a friend of the Prince of Wales, the formal marriage had only intended to conceal her affair with the Prince.