The future Prime Minister's friendship with an eccentric widow. From Devon Life, June 1979

One of the most devoted admirers of Benjamin Disraeli, novelist and twice Conservative Prime Minister in the last century, was a widow living in Torquay, Devon, Mrs Brydges Willyams. Both were of Jewish descent, and distantly related. She married a James Brydges Willyams of Carnanton, Cornwall; Colonel of the Royal Cornish Militia, who died in 1820 aged 48; they had no children. In 1827 she leased a site at Mount Braddon, Torquay, and had a house built there the following year. Her age is uncertain, but it is thought that she was over 80 when her friendship with Disraeli, described by his biographer James Froude as 'a curious and delicate idyll', began in 1851.

Legend has it that they first met by previous arrangement at the fountain of the Great Exhibition, where she presented him with an envelope containing a banknote for £1,000 to defray election expenses. This has since been disproved, and we now know that it came about through a letter she wrote asking him to act as one of her executors. He replied that he would like time to consider it, and a few weeks later wrote that he would conditionally accept, but ought to meet her when he was next in Devon. This accordingly happened later that year, and before long their correspondence assumed a 'very affectionate and intimate character' with mutual presents of books. Among the first he sent her was a copy of his novel ‘Tancred’, and a life of Charles I.

In August 1853 the Disraelis came to stay at the Royal Hotel in Torquay for a week, and Mrs Willyams received a note saying that: "Mrs Disraeli is very anxious to have the pleasure of being presented to you, and we propose...to take your mountain fortress by assault this morning, and early - about noon." That week the three of them went for drives to Ugbrooke, Berry Pomeroy and the wooded banks of the Dart in the afternoons, and had dinner parties each evening. The Disraelis returned to their estate at Hughenden in Buckinghamshire enchanted with their new friend. She wrote that until their next meeting she would ‘live on retrospection'.

Thereafter the Disraelis came to Torquay annually, although Mrs Willyams felt she was too old to visit them at Hughenden. About 250 letters between them survive; in the earlier years Disraeli, and occasionally his wife, wrote about once a month, but from 1858 onwards he averaged twice as many. They touch on his various social and political activities; as it was obvious that she then would never see Hughenden for herself, he took great pains to describe the garden. Every letter sparkles with his inimitable style, for instance this description of his estate in autumn, 1858, "...the limes all golden, the beeches ruddy brown, while the oaks and elms and pines are still dark and green, and contrast well with the brighter tints. But not a leaf has fallen; they want the first whisper of the frost and then they will go out like lamps when the dawn breaks on a long festival."

From exchanging books, the presents became game, fish, fruit and plants. He sent down venison, grouse, partridge and trout, and in return Mrs Willvams gave him turbot, sole, mullet and lobster. One basket of prawns he referred to as "the rosy coloured tribute of Torbay" when thanking her. Hatfield raspberry canes, presented by Disraeli's colleague Lord Salisbury, flourished in her Torquav garden, while in exchange he could write of how "All Hughenden sparkles with the Microfilia rose, the numerous and brilliant offspring of the colony you send from Mount Braddon. Thus you see how races are propagated and how empires are formed." It is also believed that he first admired the primrose in her garden; if so, then Torquay may credit herself with being partly responsible for the founding of the Primrose League.

Another bond existed between them. Both Disraeli and Mrs Willyams, probably wrongly believed themselves to be connected with the Laras, a Spanish aristocratic family. In 1859 she decided to obtain for herself a coat of arms authorised by the College of Heralds. He took much trouble on her behalf, negotiating with the College himself and even contacting the Spanish and Portuguese ambassadors on the exact bearings of the families Lara and Mendez de la Costa, but without success. Within three years he had done all he could, and on thanking him for his efforts she wrote to ask that he should assume their names in addition to that of Disraeli. She repeated the request in her will, but did not make it a condition, and he must have been relieved to keep his name as it was.

Mrs Willyams' own letters are unremarka'ble. They were usually very short, full of glowing praise for 'dear Dizzi', obsession with her ancestry, and little else. Once she sent him a description of a dinner party she had attended which he said reminded him of ‘Miss Austen', but to borrow his phrase this shows that not only for royalty did he 'lay it on with a trowel'. It seems that her chief excitements in life were the letters and visits from her hero.

Like most of Disraeli's friends, she had a reputation for eccentricity. Her clothes were odd, and she rarely ventured outdoors without two bulldogs on a leash. According to a neighbour, her theory was that "nobody need die before 100 provided they take care of themselves and avoid doctors." Living alone without servants, she was a continual source of anxiety in the area whenever she fell ill, being fiercely independent and scorning offers of help. In December 1862 the Reverend W. G. Parks Smith, Vicar of Torquay St John, wrote to Disraeli for advice when she was unwell, but fortunately she was better within a couple of days.

On 5th November 1863 Disraeli wrote what was to 'be his last letter to her. He was unaware that she was again ill, and she died six days later before he could reach Mount Braddon. "1 have lost a kind and faithful friend," he wrote to Lord Derby. In her will she left him nearly £40,000 "in testimony of my affection and in approbation and admiration of his efforts to vindicate the race of Israel with my views respecting which he is acquainted", and Mount Braddon. However, he had no love for Torquay after her death, and sold the land in 1865. Nine years later he was to write from Bournemouth: "I detest this place - it is a large overgrown watering place, almost as bad as Torquay."

Had Mrs Willyams lived another five years, she would have seen her friend become Prime Minister. To his intense annoyance it proved impossible to bury her in the family vault at Hughenden as they had wished, but nevertheless she was interred outside the east end of the church. Mrs Disraeli joined her in 1868, and her husband in 1881. In one of the chapels is a monument perpetuating the memory of the three great companions - surely one of the most eccentric political relationships of the time.

After changing hands several times, Mrs Willyams' house became the Mount Braddon Hotel, until its recent sale. Every spring under an old cedar tree in the garden, primroses would bloom in profusion, a perennial monument to one of the most colourful of all Victorian statesmen and his greatest westcountry admirer.