Fanny

## Stephanie 'Fanny' Euphemia Button (née Colebrooke)

Alison Cooper (closest living relative, though "there isn't really a term" for their relationship)
George Button (mother's sister's husband's cousin's son/husband)

## Portrayal information

### Appears in

All episodes

> "She's no niece of mine, look at her, she's exposing her knees and she's got a tattoo."― Fanny about Alison to the other ghosts[src]
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**Stephanie "Fanny" Euphemia Button**, nee **Colebrooke**, also called **Lady Button**, (d. 1912) is the ghost of a former land-owner from the Edwardian era. She is the late Lady Heather Button's great grandmother.

## History

Fanny was born to a wealthy family in the Victorian era. It appears as though her parents had no sons and that she was an only child. Her father was a successful businessman and her mother Lavinia was a very traditional woman. She believed business was for men and that a lady's duty was to marry and produce an heir. Fanny vehemently disagreed with these views. She had an outstanding education of literacy and arithmetic, and also learnt the skills of needlework and cooking.

It seems that Fanny's father was a failed man who preferred to gamble more than run the business he inherited. Fanny wanted to help him and be its owner someday. Her mother Lavinia wanted her to get married, though Fanny was not interested and seems to have avoided men a lot.

One day Lavinia's friend Adelaide Pembroke's daughter, Felicity, had become engaged and she was seven years younger than Fanny. Lavinia tried to use this story to persuade Fanny to get married, but to no avail. Not long after, men came and began taking away furniture from their stately home. It was revealed that Fanny's father had been gambling and lost almost all the family's money. Fanny and her parents were on the verge of ending up on the streets.

Lavinia begged her sister to lend them some money but her husband refused, stating that they couldn't afford to give away any of their money and that it would cause scandal for both their families. Lavinia began to cry, and her brother-in-law suggested one last option. The son of Fanny's uncle's cousin - a handsome but "wayward" young man called George - was just slightly younger than Fanny and his family were looking for a wife for him. Fanny and her mother met George when he visited their home. They later wed.

When she and George married at Winchester Cathedral, Fanny was "given away by the Marquess of Granby and the guests included the Duchess [of somewhere]". Their marriage occurred sometime between 1888 and 1902 Despite her husband clearly not interested in sex with women, George clearly would have had sex with his wife on at least one occasion, and they must have given birth to at least one child, as they became great grandparents.

After she discovered her husband having a threesome with their gardener, Henry, and their butler, Evans in their bedroom, George pushed Fanny out the bedroom window, an event she subconsciously reenacts every time the clock chimes at three in the morning, the time of her death (prompting some of the other ghosts to set the clock back); George got away with the murder by claiming that she fell "from an upstairs window after being surprised by a mouse." Out of all of the ghosts, she is Alison's closest relative. Fanny died when she was in her late 50s or early 60s.

Because of the dramatic manner of her death, a legend has arisen in the local area that Fanny haunts Button House as a ghost - though only Alison and Mike know that she really does. The story is so famous that when real photos of "the Grey Lady" go viral, the Coopers are accused of faking them to cash in on the legend.

## Personality

A stickler for etiquette and maintaining a good reputation, as Alison quickly discovers, Fanny has a hair-trigger temper, which prompts many complaints about modern life. She often tells Alison how to behave as a "lady". It becomes apparent later in series 3 that she only nags the other Button House residents as a way to ignore her own problems, and when there is nothing to be annoyed at she doesn't quite know what to do.

It's rare to see her show anything past her rough exterior, although on some occasions she has shown sympathy for others. For example in the episode Perfect Day, in which her traditional views on same-sex marriage are changed once she realizes that if her husband, George, was allowed to marry who he chose, she wouldn't have been killed and she could have married some one who she really loved.

She also shows a considerable amount of sympathy for Nicholas in the episode He Came!, she argues that judging him is unfair and that no one knows the events that led to him becoming homeless, since she and her mother almost became homeless at some point.

## Quotes

* "A lady does not hold a carrot like that!" — Who Do You Think You Are?
* "You thieving git!" — Getting Out
* "I find myself having a conniption fit." — Redding Weddy
* "Lace brassiere!" — The Thomas Thorne Affair
* "Oh, just leaving the witness alive, are we, not even a threat of violence? At least take some identification and say you'll be back if he contacts the authorities!" — Bump In The Night
* "Off the lawn! Off the lawn!" — The Grey Lady
* "Well, times change, don't they? We should know. After all, if George had been free to love as he chose... well, I wouldn't have been murdered and I could have had a husband instead who wanted to know me. And when I say know, I mean given me a really good—" — Perfect Day

## Notes

1. ↑ mentioned in Button House Archives book
2. ↑ According to *The Button House Archives*, Fanny was alive in April to complain to the White Star Line about a refund for Titanic tickets.
3. ↑ Mentioned in Button House Archives book
4. ↑ "And Simeon is in continual dialogue with his creditors" - Lavinia, He Came!
5. ↑ "You see, I have a cousin, a wealthy family, who has this somewhat wayward son. Do you know the Buttons at all?" - Fanny's Uncle by marriage, He Came!
6. ↑ *Ghosts: The Button House Archives:* page 177.
7. ↑ Mentioned in Button House Archives book
8. ↑ Fanny's actual title is unknown. He Came! indicates that she is *not* born into the Aristocracy and inherited the title of "Lady Button" on marriage. However, the fact that the great-granddaughter of her and George - Heather Button - is known as *Lady* Heather and was *unmarried* implies that George (or one of their descendants) later became at least an Earl as the daughters of Viscounts and Barons do not receive the title of *Lady*, merely *The Honorable Miss [first name] [surname]* (i.e *The Honorable Miss Heather Button*). This implies that Fanny is only known as Lady Button because that was her husband's title at the time, with him then possibly being an Earl or higher. There are more than 8 such families in British history, where the title is also the surname, including: Spencer, Russell, Cadogan, Talbot, Fortescue and Grey.
9. ↑ Charles Manners, 6th Duke of Rutland, was Marquess of Granby between 1815 and 1857, so could not be the Marquess who gave her away as that would make Fanny 70 or 80 at her death, when she actually died in her 50s or 60s; the next person to be known as Marquess of Granby was his grandson, Henry Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland, but he did not become Marquess of Granby until 1888, so her marriage must have occurred sometime between that date and 1906, when he became Duke.
10. ↑ *Ghosts: The Button House Archives*: Page 50: features a letter from Lady Stephanie Button to *Dearest Elspeth*, dated 18 May 1902, meaning she was married to George by that date.
11. ↑ *Ghosts: The Button House Archive:* page 114 names Henry as the butler and Evans as the gardener.
12. ↑ *Ghosts: The Button House Archives*: Page 44.
13. ↑ They are still not *very* closely related; Heather is Fanny's Great granddaughter, and Alison in turn likens her own relationship to Heather to a "Step great niece" though it's actually more distant than that.