Editing Alice Liddell (section)

==Early life==
Alice Liddell was the fourth of the ten children of [[Henry Liddell]], [[Dean of Christ Church, Oxford|Dean]] of [[Christ Church, Oxford]], one of the editors of ''[[A Greek-English Lexicon]]'', and his wife Lorina Hanna Liddell (''née'' Reeve). She had two older brothers, Harry (born 1847) and Arthur (1850–53), an older sister Lorina (born 1849), and six younger siblings, including her sister Edith (born 1854) to whom she was very close, and her brother [[Frederick Francis Liddell|Frederick]] (born 1865).
[[File:Alice Liddell with sisters.jpg|thumb|left|Alice Liddell (right) with sisters c.1859 (photo by [[Lewis Carroll]])]]
At the time of her birth, her father was the Headmaster of [[Westminster School]], but soon afterwards he was appointed to the deanery of Christ Church, Oxford. The Liddell family moved to Oxford in 1856. Soon after this move, Alice met [[Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]] (Lewis Carroll), who encountered the family while [[Photography|photographing]] the [[Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford|cathedral]] on 25 April 1856. He became a close friend of the Liddell family in subsequent years.

Alice was three years younger than Lorina and two years older than Edith, and the three sisters were constant childhood companions. She and her family regularly spent holidays at their holiday home Penmorfa, which later became the Gogarth Abbey Hotel, on the West Shore of [[Llandudno]] in [[North Wales]].

[[File:Alice Liddell as Pomona by Julia Margaret Cameron.jpg|thumb|upright|Alice Liddell at the age of 20, photographed by [[Julia Margaret Cameron]]]]
When Alice Liddell was a young woman, she set out on a [[Grand Tour]] of Europe with Lorina and Edith. One story has it that she became a romantic interest of [[Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany|Prince Leopold]], the youngest son of [[Queen Victoria]], during the four years he spent at Christ Church, but the evidence for this is sparse. It is true that years later, Leopold named his first child [[Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone|Alice]] and acted as godfather to Alice's second son Leopold. However, it is possible Alice was named in honour of Leopold's deceased elder sister instead, [[Princess Alice of the United Kingdom|the Grand Duchess of Hesse]].  A recent biographer of Leopold suggests it is far more likely that Alice's sister Edith was the true recipient of Leopold's attention.<ref>cited in Leach, Karoline ''In the Shadow of the Dreamchild'', p. 201</ref> Edith died on 26 June 1876,<ref>''The Cathedral Church of Oxford, a Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See'', p. 101</ref> possibly of [[measles]] or [[peritonitis]] (accounts differ), shortly before she was to be married to Aubrey Harcourt, a cricket player.<ref>[[Will Brooker]], ''Alice's adventures: Lewis Carroll in popular culture'', p. 338</ref> Prince Leopold served as a pall-bearer at her funeral on 30 June 1876.<ref>{{cite news|title=Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 233, 22 September 1876, p. 4, quoting Home News, 1876|url=http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=NEM18760922.2.16|access-date=5 August 2010}}</ref>