Lady Mary Faith Culme-Seymour, Lady Culme-Seymour (née Montagu, previously Nesbitt; 1 November 1911 – 16 February 1983) was a British aristocrat and letter writer. The daughter of the 9th Earl of Sandwich and American heiress Alberta Sturges, she grew up at the family's ancestral seat, Hinchingbrooke House in Huntingdon. When her brother, Victor Montagu, 10th Earl of Sandwich, sold the family home in 1955, Lady Faith took her close friend, the novelist E. M. Forster, to see it one last time. Her last tour of the home with Forster was an emotional one, and she documented the experience in her diary and in letters. She and Forster, who initially offered her advice on short story writing, remained friends until his death.
Through her second marriage, to Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, 5th Baronet, Lady Faith was the châtelaine of Rockingham Castle in Northamptonshire, where she oversaw the renovation and redecoration of the house.
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Early life and family
Mary Faith Montagu was born on 1 November 1911 to George Montagu, a Conservative politician and former Member of Parliament, and his American wife, the heiress Alberta Sturges. The third of four children, she was a younger sister of Victor Montagu and William Drogo Sturges Montagu and an older sister of Elizabeth Montagu. Her paternal grandfather, Rear Admiral The Honourable Victor Montagu, was an officer in the Royal Navy, a godson of Queen Victoria, and the younger son of John Montagu, 7th Earl of Sandwich. On her mother's side, Lady Faith was a grandniece of the American spiritualist Josephine MacLeod and a descendant of U.S. Congressman and judge Jonathan Sturges. Her mother, who was American, was of Scottish and English descent. At the time of her birth, her uncle Edward was the Earl of Sandwich. In 1916, her father succeeded his brother as the 9th Earl of Sandwich and moved the family into Hinchingbrooke House, the Montagu family's ancestral seat. At the time of her father's elevation to the peerage, she became entitled to the courtesy title The Lady Mary Faith Montagu as the daughter of an earl.