Frances Jocelyn, Viscountess Jocelyn

Frances Elizabeth Jocelyn, Viscountess Jocelyn (née Cowper), VA, was born on 9 February 1820 and died on 26 March 1880. She was a British courtier and amateur photographer. She was the youngest daughter of Peter Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper, and Emily Lamb, daughter of Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne. Some historians have speculated that her biological father may have been Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, whom her mother married in 1839 after the death of the 5th Earl Cowper. Officially, her paternity was attributed to her mother's husband, the 5th Earl Cowper.

Lady Frances Cowper served as a trainbearer at the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838 and as a bridesmaid at the same queen's wedding to Prince Albert in 1840. In 1841, she married Robert Jocelyn, Viscount Jocelyn, the eldest son and heir of the 3rd Earl of Roderick. She was then known as Lady Jocelyn. Later that year, she was appointed a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, a position she held until 1867.

Her husband was born on 20 February 1816, making him four years her senior. The Jocelyn family was regarded as quite religious, contrasting with the Cowper family's secular background. After their marriage, the couple moved to Northern Ireland to reside on her husband's family estate. Together, they had five children: Victoria Alexandrina Emily Jocelyn (1842–1843), Alice Maria Jocelyn (1843–1867), Edith Elizabeth Henrietta Jocelyn (1845–1871), Robert Jocelyn, who later became the 4th Earl of Roderick (1846–1880), and Frederick Spencer Jocelyn (1852–1871).

In 1854, her husband contracted cholera while preparing to depart for the Crimean War and subsequently died at the residence of the Palmerstons. Following his death, Lady Jocelyn experienced a period of mourning and social withdrawal. After the death of her daughter Alice in 1867, she also took care of her grandchildren. Her eldest surviving son succeeded his grandfather as Earl of Roderick in 1870.

Beginning in 1858, Lady Jocelyn took up photography, possibly encouraged by Dr Ernst Becker, who was associated with Prince Albert and a founding member of the Royal Photographic Society. She became proficient in landscape and portrait photography, and in the 1861 Census, she listed her occupation as "photographer." She was elected to the Royal Photographic Society in 1859 and joined the Amateur Photographic Association in 1861. Her work was exhibited at the International Exhibition in London in 1862, where she received an honorable mention for her landscape photographs of the Palmerston estate, Broadlands. Her photographs also appeared at the Dublin International Exhibition in 1865.

Lady Jocelyn produced photographic albums in the 1850s, with notable work including collages of cut-up images re-inserted onto painted backdrops, as well as watercolours that "subverted the realistic nature of photography," which was seen as demonstrating creative and inventive engagement with the medium. Her interest in photography declined in the 1870s. She traveled extensively with her children, visiting seaside resorts in England and France for health reasons. Lady Frances Jocelyn died in Cannes, France, on 24 March 1880. All of her five children predeceased her. Several years after her death, Queen Victoria commissioned artist Eduardo de Moira to copy a miniature of Lady Jocelyn that an earlier artist, William Ross, had made.

Her children included Hon. Victoria Alexandrina Emily Jocelyn, who died in early infancy; Hon. Alice Maria Jocelyn; Hon. Edith Elizabeth Henrietta Jocelyn, who married Arthur Gore, Viscount Sudley; Robert Jocelyn, who became the 4th Earl of Roderick; and Hon. Frederick Spencer Jocelyn.