Viscountess Marianne Margaret Compton Cust Alford

Lady Marian Alford (1817–1888), born Marianne Margaret Compton, was an English artist, patron and writer on embroidery. The daughter of the second Marquess of Northampton, she grew up in Italy, married Viscount Alford, heir of Earl Brownlow, and after his early death managed the family's estates and built Alford House in London. A skilled watercolorist and a friend of artists, she was a founder in 1872 and vice-president of the Royal School of Art Needlework, which trained gentlewomen to execute designs by Morris, Burne-Jones and Crane and revived embroidery as a serious decorative art. Needlework as Art (1886) set out the history and principles behind that revival.