Portrait of Anne, Lady Romilly (c.1773-1818), bust length, in an ivory dress, in a feigned oval

Anne was born the daughter of Francis Garbett, of Knill Court, Herefordshire. In 1798 she married the noted lawyer, politician and legal reformer Sir Samuel Romilly, with whom she had six children. Anne was evidently an intelligent and engaging woman, who moved in exalted literary circles. She was a friend of the novelist Maria Edgeworth, who commented regularly in her correspondence on Anne's charm, beauty and easy conversation. The two were also acquainted with Madame de Staël, the French writer and political theorist who lived in England first as an exile during the Reign of Terror and subsequently due to personal persecution by Napoleon. Through her husband, Anne was also an acquaintance of Lord Byron. Indeed, when Byron was being attacked for the publication of his poem A sketch from private life, which addressed both the failures of his governess as a child and the breakdown of his marriage, Anne wrote to Maria Edgeworth that the poet "might certainly have been prosecuted for a Libel," although Lady Byron "thought it was better to let the affair rest and be forgotten if it could". (Romilly-Edgeworth Letters, p. 140). The bond between Sir Samuel and Lady Romilly was evidently that of true love; Anne died on the 29 October 1818, and four days later her husband committed suicide. His last words, written as he died, were "My dear, I wish...", presumably addressed to the wife he could not live without.