Marchioness of Rockingham. She was a political wife. She was born near Pontefract, Yorkshire, the daughter and heir of Thomas Bright (d. 1739), son of John Bright (formerly Liddell) of Badsworth, near Pontefract, and Margaret (d. 1775), daughter of William Norton of Sawley, near Ripon. Descended from the Hallamshire family of Bright, she brought the estates of Badsworth and Ecclesall, near Sheffield, to her husband, Charles Watson-Wentworth, second marquess of Rockingham (1730–1782), of Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, whom she married on 26 February 1752 in Golden Square, St James's, Piccadilly, at the house of her stepfather, Sir John Ramsden, third baronet, of Byram, Yorkshire. She was headstrong in her various enthusiasms, which apparently included in 1760, shortly before he ascended the throne as George III, the prince of Wales. In June 1768, when Horace Walpole asked Lord Strafford, is it true that Lady Rockingham is turned Methodist. Lady Rockingham remained a devout Anglican, but there was evidently some latitude in her religious beliefs; writing to the earl of Chichester in 1801 she recollected the 'Old Times when we used to say our Prayers together in John Street Chapel'. She contributed to the parliamentary management of the Rockingham whigs; in June 1767, for example, she helped her sick husband to organize the signing of a formal protest in the House of Lords. She was equally active in extra-parliamentary matters, being particularly involved in canvassing support for Admiral Augustus Keppel, whose defence at his court martial in 1779 was taken up as a party issue by her friends. Having been widowed in July 1782, shortly after Rockingham had resumed the premiership, Lady Rockingham, who was well provided for under his will, settled at Hillingdon House, near Uxbridge, Middlesex, in 1785. There, ever cherishing her husband's memory, she interested herself in gardening and corresponded with Sir James Edward Smith, the first president of the Linnean Society.