19 May 1812-15 January 1892.

     Lady Charlotte was the eldest child of the ninth Earl of Lindsey, who inherited the title and estate at Uffington near Stamford when his third cousin, the Eighth Earl, died. When she was six her father died and when her mother re-married in 1827 he proved to be unfavorable to education for girls. Despite this she learnt French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Persian and copper plate etching.

     After being linked to the young Disraeli she became the second wife of John Guest on 29 July 1833. He part-owned and managed the Dowlais Ironworks in Wales, and Charlotte became the company secretary as well as raising their five sons and five daughters. She learnt Welsh and actively oversaw the translation of the Mabinogion, medieval legends which have both directly and indirectly influenced much modern Fantasy. The work was published in 3 volumes from 1838 to 1849.

     When her husband died in 1852 Charlotte took over the running of the Ironworks, then the largest in the world. She actively engaged in settling labour disputes as well as being often seen around the furnaces and at the mineshafts.

     In 1855 she re married to the much younger Charles Schreiber, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and at one time an M.P. She now relinquished the control of the Ironworks and took up avidly collecting china and fans across Europe. Between 1877 and 1880 her son-in-law, Sir Austin Layard was the ambassador to Turkey, and Charlotte campaigned for the compassionate fund for Turkish women and children.

     When her second husband died in 1884, she presented much of her china collection to South Kensington Museum. She Presented her fan's to the British Museum in 1891. In her last years, though now blind, she edited the diaries she had kept all her life. She also knitted comforters for London cabmen as well as having a shelter built for them.

     Her diaries were first published as 'Lady Charlotte Schreiber's Journals' in 1911, edited by her son Montague Guest. They were re-edited by her grandson the Earl of Bessborough as 'The Diaries of Lady Charlotte Guest' (1950) and 'Lady Charlotte Schreiber Extracts from Her Journal' (1952). In keeping with the family tradition, her great grand daughter Revel Guest co-authored the excellent biography 'Lady Charlotte' with Angela V. John (1989).