Maria Margaret Pollen (1838–1919)

Maria Margaret Pollen, née La Primaudaye, was born in England to a French Huguenot family. Her family converted to the Roman Catholic faith in 1851, and in Rome, her father met John Hungerford Pollen, a decorative artist who had also recently converted. She married Pollen, 17 her senior, in 1855. The couple initially settled in Dublin, Ireland, where her husband had been offered the position of professor of fine arts at the newly-founded University College Dublin.

In 1857, the couple moved to London, where they became enthusiastic members of the artistic and literary community and friends with many of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Dante Gabriel Rossetti made a portrait sketch of Maria Margaret that year. The Pollens had 10 children, and

during the 1870s and 1880s, they rented Newbuildings Place in Shipley, Sussex, from Wilfrid Scawen Blunt.

Maria Margaret collected antique lace, fans, and 18th-century English glass. Her collections were exhibited during her lifetime at the South Kensington Museum, where her husband was Assistant Keeper from 1863; the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition; and the 1910 Japan-British Exhibition.

Following the death of her husband in 1902, Maria Margaret continued to develop their joint interest in decorative art and antique textiles, becoming a lecturer on the subject of old lace. In 1908, she published an influential history of lace-making entitled Seven Centuries of Old Lace. She also published articles in journals such as The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs.