Wikipedia

Elizabeth Whately

Elizabeth Whately (née Pope; 7 October 1795[1] – 25 April 1860) was an English writer and the wife of Dr Richard Whately, Protestant Archbishop of Dublin. She wrote and edited a number of fictional, religious and educational works, although little of her writing appeared explicitly under her own name.

Background edit

Whately was born in 1795, the daughter of William Pope of Hillingdon, Middlesex, and his wife, Mary (née Heaton) Pope.[2][3] She was baptised at St John the Baptist in Hillingdon on 22 December 1795.[1][a]

The Pope family acquired the Hillingdon rectory estate during the 18th century, from the Harington family.[5] William Pope, the elder, married in 1773 the daughter of Richard Mills, vicar of Hillingdon, resided at the parsonage, and was buried in the churchyard in 1789.[6][7][8][9] With others he had briefly owned Whitton Park in the 1760s.[10] His widow Mabel died in 1823, at age 88.[11]

William Pope, the younger, of Gray's Inn, was admitted on 19 April 1787 as the eldest son of William Pope of Hillingdon; he worked in the Exchequer office. He married Mary Heaton, only daughter of the Rev. Sherlock Willis, rector of Wormley, in 1790, and died in 1809.[12][13][14][15][16] They had daughters and a son; one of the daughters died in 1829, in Tunbridge Wells.[17] Elizabeth was the third daughter;[18] the youngest daughter Louisa married Henry Bishop in 1833.[19] Charlotte Pope, Elizabeth's sister, married Baden Powell in 1837 as his second wife.[20]

Elizabeth's brother was William Law Pope, who matriculated at Worcester College, Oxford in 1814, at age 17.[21][22] Beidler infers that Elizabeth Pope may have worked as a governess, a parallel possibly existing with the plot of The Roving Bee (1855) attributed to her.[23] In any case Charlotte Brontë praised her empathy with the plight of the governess in an unrelated family, expressed in Pope's 1847 work English Life.[24] Thomas Mozley states that Elizabeth's brother was an old friend of John Frederick Christie, fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and accompanied Richard Whately to Dublin.[25]

A further Oxford connection was the Rev. James Pope, Elizabeth's uncle, a Fellow of St John's College and evangelical, who became vicar of Great Staughton.[26][27][28]

Marriage edit

Elizabeth Pope had a first cousin, Sherlock Willis, son of the Rev John Law Willis and thus grandson of the Rev Sherlock Willis, her maternal grandfather.[29][16][30] Sherlock Willis was an Oxford friend of Richard Whately, whom she met in 1820, and married in 1821 in Cheltenham; she was living there with her widowed mother, when Whately came with Willis to take the waters.[18][31]

The Whatelys moved to Halesworth, a living taken by Richard who was required to give up his college fellowship at Oriel on marrying.[18] Elizabeth found the parishioners there to be in a state of "heathenish ignorance".[32] They had five children; Elizabeth herself and her two elder daughters, Jane Whately and Mary Louisa Whately, were in time active in religiously inspired works.[33] Elizabeth was ill in Halesworth, and a sister came to visit, becoming ill also; the malady was called "typhus fever".[34]

They returned to Oxford after three years, when Richard became head of St Alban's Hall, Oxford in 1825.[18] Elizabeth Whately knew the leaders of what would be the Tractarian group socially, riding with John Henry Newman on 7 October 1831, according to his diary.[35] John Keble had visited the Whately's at Halesworth, reading to them from the Christian Year in manuscript;[36] and the Whatelys called on the newly married Edward Pusey and his wife on 18 September 1828.[37] Elizabeth had some criticism of a sermon of Edward Hawkins, Provost of Oriel College, causing Richard to write an apology on 2 March 1831, if not quite seriously.[38]

In Dublin edit

In the early 1830s, Richard Whately was made Anglican Archbishop of Dublin, and the family moved to Ireland. But the marriage was under strain. Joseph Blanco White formed part of the household, as tutor to Edward Whately. The archbishop came to view his theology as a bad influence on his wife, who was experiencing a crisis of her Christian faith. Matters came to a head at the end of 1834, over a translation Blanco White, who was in transition to a Unitarian position, was making from August Neander. Elizabeth had a confiding relationship with Blanco White, as did her sister Charlotte who was aware of the strife, and they kept in touch by letter when he had left Dublin.[39]

At the end of her life, from December 1834, Felicia Hemans spent time at Redesdale, the Whately's place in Kilmacud, and corresponded with Elizabeth.[40][41] The Whatelys were in Rugby visiting Thomas Arnold in autumn 1835, and Elizabeth made an impression on the young William Charles Lake.[42] Tom Arnold, son of the family, wrote of her:

Her features were far from regular, but in her best days the eyes beamed with kindness and intelligence, and wonderfully lit up the rest of the face. In the whole Whately circle there was no one, I think — and we loved them all — to whom the hearts of the whole Arnold circle went out with so warm and special a love as to the mother. She was drawn in her later years into the proselytising operations which awakened the zeal of her daughters, and a great family sorrow came to throw a shade of gloom upon her once radiant forehead; but the intrinsic benevolence of her nature never changed.[43]

Later life edit

In 1841 Elizabeth suffered a compound fracture of her leg.[44] She challenged George Combe on his 1847 pamphlet Remarks on National Education.[45] Another disagreement with her husband with a theological root was Elizabeth's support in the 1840s for Alexander Dallas, whose efforts with Irish Church Missions were dismissed by the archbishop.[46] Elizabeth and her daughters supported the work of Ellen Smyly, an associate of Dallas, but without the backing of her husband.[47] When Daniel Murray was succeeded by Paul Cullen as Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, the family connection with Dallas caused Cullen to conclude that Richard Whately was concerned with proselytising.[48]

During the early years of the Great Famine, Richard and Elizabeth Whately set up a relief committee, and contributed to it.[49] Elizabeth was involved in industrial school, ragged school and Sunday school works as President of a society based in Townsend Street, Dublin.[50]

Elizabeth Whately visited Blanco White once in Liverpool, with her daughters Jane and Mary.[51] John Hamilton Thom, Blanco White's biographer, dealt in The Theological Review for 1867 with the estrangement from the Whatelys at length, in reply to Jane Whately's biography of her father.[52]

Death and legacy edit

Elizabeth Whately died on 25 April 1860, in Hastings.[53][54] Alexander Dallas preached her funeral sermon.[48] Her obituary in the Belfast Mercury credited her with the foundation of Dublin by Lamplight, a Magdalene asylum in Ballsbridge from 1855.[55][56] The Clergy Daughters' School building in Leeson Park, Dublin was erected in her memory.[57]

Works edit

 
"Agatha and Soeur Camille in the Convent Garden", from Quicksands on Foreign Shores (1854) by Elizabeth Whately
  • Children's tracts.[58] Titles mentioned on the title page of Reverses (1833) are Conversations on the Life of Christ and First Preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles.[59] Fitzpatrick states that the titles by Elizabeth Whately that appeared in 1830 were edited by Richard Whately.[60]
  • Village Conversations in Hard Times (1831, two parts) by "a Country Pastor".[46] In the past attributed to Richard Whately.[61]
  • Reverses: or Memoirs of the Fairfax Family (1833), novel.[62] The conclusion of the story has the Fairfax family emigrating to Canada.[46] Richard Whately wrote about such emigrants in one of his early contributions to the Quarterly Review.[63] Mary Charlotte Mair Simpson, daughter of Nassau William Senior, attributes the tale "Norval" in this work to Richard Whately.[64]
  • The Second Part of the History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1835, R. Fellowes), a continuation of Rasselas, intended as children's literature.[65] It was first published in 1834 in a collection edited by Lady Mary Fox.[62] This work was neglected until a 1950 article by Robert Metzdorf.[66] According to Richard, Whately "draws characters confident that Christian order will eventually spread over the globe."[67] The same collection contained Atmos the Giant by Blanco White, inspired by his 1832 journey on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and passed to Elizabeth Whately.[68][69]

A Guide to Irish Fiction comments on the gap to 1854 in Elizabeth Whately's production of fiction after this work.[46] She edited Thoughts of a Parent on Education, by the Late Mrs Richard Trench (1837) by the late Melesina Trench.[70] Egerton Ryerson gained the impression from Richard Whately, around 1845, that the Irish Education Board's standard texts for religious instruction were written by him and his wife; but that was incorrect.[71] The 1845 edition of Tales of the Genii by James Ridley, appearing under Richard Whately's name, is attributed to Elizabeth. The Light and the Life (1850) is also attributed to Elizabeth.[72]

  • English Life, social and domestic, in the middle of the nineteenth century, considered in reference to our position as a community of professing Christians (1847, B. Fellowes)[73]
  • Lectures on Scripture Parables (1854), "with the Correction and Supervision of Dr. Whately"[74]
  • Quicksands on Foreign Shores (1854), as "Great Truths Popularly Illustrated" No.1, edited by "the author of English Life social and domestic", published by Blacader & Co., London.
  • The Roving Bee: or, A Peep into Many Hives (1855), given as edited by, and attributed to, Whately.[75] A plot summary from a review in The Governess from 1855: "The heroine is, by "unforeseen circumstances," induced to become a governess, in order that her brother may receive a college education."[23]

Mesmerism edit

The Zoist volume XXV contained an account of blindness cured by mesmerism, written at the end of 1848 by "E. W."[76] In The Zoist, in 1850, Eliza Wallace indicated that she had knowledge of the blindness cure, associated with Elizabeth Whately, by means of a letter Whately sent to friends in Cheltenham. Wallace promoted mesmerism, with Joseph Clinton Robertson who edited the Mechanics' Magazine, and using the blindness case with the editor of the Family Herald.[77] The author's identity was again given in The Zoist in 1852 as Elizabeth Whately.[78] John Elliotson claimed Richard Whately as a supporter of mesmerism.[79]

Family edit

Richard and Elizabeth Whateley had four daughters and a son, including:[80]

A Guide to Irish Fiction states that there was a second son.[46]

Notes edit

  1. ^ Her daughter Jane Whately's memoir of her sister Mary Louisa Whately gives Elizabeth's father as J. C. Pope of Hillingdon, although this seems likely to be a mistake; or, he was referred to as J. C. to distinguish him from William Pope the elder.[4]

References edit

  1. ^ a b London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812
  2. ^ Robert P. Dod (1862). The Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, of Great Britain and Ireland for 1862. p. 229.
  3. ^ William John Fitzpatrick (1864). Memoirs of Richard Whately. Рипол Классик. p. 23. ISBN 978-5-87586-582-4.
  4. ^ Whately, Elizabeth Jane (1890). "The Life and Work of Mary Louisa Whately". Internet Archive. London: Religious Tract Society. p. 10. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  5. ^ Daniel Lysons (1800). An Historical Account of those Parishes in the County of Middlesex: which are not described in the Environs of London. Printed for T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies. p. 167.
  6. ^ Sentimental Magazine, Or, General Assemblage of Science, Taste, and Entertainment. 1773. p. 240.
  7. ^ "CCED: Persons Index Mills, Richard 164990". Archived from the original on 4 April 2016. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  8. ^ The Universal Magazine. Pub. for J. Hinton. 1773. p. 55.
  9. ^ Daniel Lysons (1800). An historical account of those parishes in the county of Middlesex: which are not described in the Environs of London. Printed for T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies. pp. 164.
  10. ^ "Twickenham Museum - houses of local interest: Whitton Park". Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  11. ^ "Died". Oxford Journal. 26 July 1823. p. 4. Retrieved 30 March 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  12. ^ Foster, Joseph (1889). "The register of Admissions to Gray's Inn, 1521–1889, together with the register of marriages in Gray's inn chapel, 1695-1754". Internet Archive. London: Hansard publishing union, Ltd. p. 393. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  13. ^ The Gentleman's Magazine. F. Jeffries. 1809. p. 390.
  14. ^ The Political Magazine and Parliamentary, Naval, Military, and Literary Journal, For the YEAR. 1790. p. 428.
  15. ^ "The Registers of Marriages of St. Mary le Bone, Middlesex, 1668-1812: and of Oxford Chapel, Vere Street, St. Mary le Bone, 1736-1754". p. 138. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  16. ^ a b Arthur Jones (1993). Hertfordshire 1731-1800 as Recorded in the Gentleman's Magazine. Univ of Hertfordshire Press. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-901354-73-0.
  17. ^ The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman (PDF), p. 151 and note 2, p. 176[permanent dead link]
  18. ^ a b c d Brent, Richard. "Whately, Richard". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29176. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  19. ^ "Married". Maidstone Journal and Kentish Advertiser. 17 September 1833. p. 4. Retrieved 30 March 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  20. ^ Pietro Corsi (26 May 1988). Science and Religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican Debate, 1800–1860. Cambridge University Press. p. 144. ISBN 978-0-521-24245-5.
  21. ^ Pietro Corsi (26 May 1988). Science and Religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican Debate, 1800-1860. Cambridge University Press. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-521-24245-5.
  22. ^ s:Page:Alumni Oxoniensis (1715-1886) volume 3.djvu/364
  23. ^ a b Peter G. Beidler (18 April 2010). The Roving Bee: Or, A Peep Into Many Hives. Coffeetown Press. pp. x–xi. ISBN 978-1-60381-062-3.
  24. ^ Drew Lamonica (2003). We Are Three Sisters: Self and Family in the Writing of the Brontës. University of Missouri Press. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-8262-6268-4.
  25. ^ Mozley, Thomas (1882). "Reminiscences : chiefly of Oriel College and the Oxford Movement". Internet Archive. London: Longmans, Green. p. 268. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  26. ^ 'Parishes: Great Staughton', in A History of the County of Huntingdon: Volume 2, ed. William Page, Granville Proby and S Inskip Ladds (London, 1932), pp. 354-369. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hunts/vol2/pp354-369 [accessed 22 March 2016].
  27. ^ Watson, Henry George (1916). "A History of the Parish of Great Staughton, Huntingdonshire". Internet Archive. St. Neots: P. C. Tomson. p. 46. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  28. ^ s:Page:Alumni Oxoniensis (1715-1886) volume 3.djvu/363
  29. ^ s:Page:Alumni Oxoniensis (1715-1886) volume 4.djvu/385
  30. ^ The European Magazine, and London Review. Philological Society of London. 1790. p. 478.
  31. ^ Whately, Elizabeth Jane (1866). "Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately, D.D., late Archbishop of Dublin". Internet Archive. London: Longmans, Green. p. 42. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  32. ^ The London Quarterly Review. Epworth Press. 1867. p. 477.
  33. ^ Carol Poster, An Organon for Theology: Whately's Rhetoric and Logic in Religious Context, Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric Vol. 24, No. 1 (Winter 2006), pp. 37–77 at p. 43 note 13. Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric DOI: 10.1525/rh.2006.24.1.37 Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/rh.2006.24.1.37
  34. ^ Richard Whately; Elizabeth Jane Whately (1866). Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately, D.D.: Late Archbishop of Dublin. Longmans, Green. p. 45.
  35. ^ The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman (PDF), p. 364[permanent dead link]
  36. ^ The London Quarterly vol. XXVII October 1866 and January 1867. 1867. p. 479.
  37. ^ "Project Canterbury Life of Edward Bouverie Pusey by Henry Parry Liddon, D.D. London: Longmans, 1894 volume one Chapter IX". Retrieved 31 March 2016.
  38. ^ Boyd Hilton (16 February 2006). A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People?: England 1783-1846. OUP Oxford. p. xcix. ISBN 978-0-19-160682-3.
  39. ^ Martin Murphy (1989). Blanco White: Self-banished Spaniard. Yale University Press. pp. 167–8 and note 23, 192–3. ISBN 978-0-300-04458-4.
  40. ^ Littell's Saturday Magazine: Or, Spirit of the Magazines and Annuals. E. Littell and Company. 1836. p. 222.
  41. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hemans, Felicia Dorothea" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 257.
  42. ^ Lake, Katharine Gladstone; Gurney, Henry Palin; Rawlinson, George (1901). Memorials of William Charles Lake, Dean of Durham, 1869–1894. London: E. Arnold. p. 157. Retrieved 25 March 2016 – via Internet Archive.
  43. ^ Arnold, Thomas (1900). "Passages in a Wandering Life". Internet Archive. London: E. Arnold. p. 23. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  44. ^ Richard Whately; Elizabeth Jane Whately (1866). Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately, D.D.: Late Archbishop of Dublin. Longmans, Green. p. 481.
  45. ^ Gibbon, Charles (1878). "The Life of George Combe, author of "The constitution of man"". Internet Archive. London: Macmillan & Co. pp. volume II 231. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  46. ^ a b c d e Rolf Loeber; Magda Stouthamer-Loeber; Anne Mullin Burnham (2006). A Guide to Irish Fiction, 1650–1900. Four Courts. pp. 1351–2.
  47. ^ June Cooper (6 January 2015). The Protestant Orphan Society and Its Social Significance in Ireland 1828–1940. Oxford University Press. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-7190-8884-1.
  48. ^ a b Desmond Bowen (1995). History and the Shaping of Irish Protestantism. Lang. p. 302. ISBN 978-0-8204-2750-8.
  49. ^ Carroll, William George (1875). A Memoir of ... James Thomas O'Brien ... with a summary of his writings. p. 10.
  50. ^ The Irish Quarterly Review. W.B. Kelly. 1854. p. 387.
  51. ^ The Spectator. F.C. Westley. 1845. p. 399.
  52. ^ The Theological Review. Whitfield, Green & Son. 1867. pp. 82–120.
  53. ^ The Rose, the Shamrock and the Thistle, a magazine. Vol.1, June-vol.6, March. 1864. p. 35.
  54. ^ The Gentleman's Magazine. A. Dodd and A. Smith. 1860. p. 642.
  55. ^ "Death of Mrs. Whately". Belfast Mercury. 30 April 1860. p. 2. Retrieved 25 March 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  56. ^ Maria Luddy (13 December 2007). Prostitution and Irish Society, 1800-1940. Cambridge University Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-521-70905-7.
  57. ^ Barrett, R. M., ed. (1884). "Guide to Dublin charities". Internet Archive. Dublin: Hodges, Figges & Co. p. 5. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  58. ^ Jessica Richard, "I Am Equally Weary of Confinement": Women Writers and "Rasselas" from "Dinarbas to Jane Eyre", Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature Vol. 22, No. 2 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 335–356, at p. 342
  59. ^ Elizabeth Whately (1833). Reverses; or, Memoirs of the Fairfax family, by the author of 'Conversations on the Life of Christ'. p. 2.
  60. ^ William John Fitzpatrick (1864). Memoirs of Richard Whately ...: With a Glance at His Contemporaries & Times. R. Bentley. p. 237.
  61. ^ Cotton, Henry (1848). "Fasti ecclesiae Hibernicae: the succession of the prelates and members of the Cathedral bodies of Ireland". Internet Archive. Dublin: Hodges. p. 85. Retrieved 22 March 2016.
  62. ^ a b Samuel Johnson (14 February 2008). The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. Broadview Press. p. 184. ISBN 978-1-77048-058-2.
  63. ^ Richard Whately (1861). Miscellaneous Lectures and Reviews. Parker, Son, and Bourn. p. 211. ISBN 9780598849564.
  64. ^ Simpson, M. C. M. (1898). "Many Memories of Many People". Internet Archive. London: Edward Arnold. p. 19. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  65. ^ Jessica Richard, "I Am Equally Weary of Confinement": Women Writers and "Rasselas" from "Dinarbas to Jane Eyre", Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature Vol. 22, No. 2 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 335–356, at pp. 336, 350 and 353 note 6
  66. ^ Edward Tomarken (5 February 2015). Johnson, Rasselas, and the Choice of Criticism. University Press of Kentucky. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-8131-6177-8.
  67. ^ Samuel Johnson (14 February 2008). The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. Broadview Press. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-77048-058-2.
  68. ^ Martin Murphy (1989). Blanco White: Self-banished Spaniard. Yale University Press. p. 158. ISBN 978-0-300-04458-4.
  69. ^ John Hamilton Thom (1845). The Life of the Rev. Joseph Blanco White: Written by Himself; with Portions of His Correspondence. J. Chapman. p. 486.
  70. ^ Memorials of the Life and Character of Lady Osborne and Some of Here Friends: Edited by Her Daughter Mrs. Osborne Catherine. Vol. 2. Hodges, Forster & Company. 1870. p. 209.
  71. ^ Donald H. Akenson (1985). Being Had: Historians, Evidence, and the Irish in North America. P. D. Meany. p. 182. ISBN 978-0-88835-014-5.
  72. ^ Richard Whately; Elizabeth Jane Whately (1866). Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately, D.D.: Late Archbishop of Dublin. Longmans, Green. pp. 472–3.
  73. ^ Mrs. Elizabeth Pope Whately (1847). English Life, social and domestic, in the middle of the nineteenth century, considered in reference to our position as a community of professing Christians. By the author of "Reverses" [Mrs. E. Whately]. B. Fellowes, Ludgate Street.
  74. ^ Memoirs of Richard Whately. Richard Bentley. 1864. p. 311.
  75. ^ Peter G. Beidler (2010-04-18). The Roving Bee: Or, A Peep Into Many Hives. Coffeetown Press. pp. ix–xi. ISBN 978-1-60381-062-3.
  76. ^ The Zoist. H. Baillière. 1850. pp. 80–5.
  77. ^ The Zoist: A Journal of Cerebral Physiology & Mesmerism, and Their Applications to Human Welfare ... H. Bailliére. 1850. pp. 199–201.
  78. ^ The Zoist. H. Baillière. 1853. p. 312.
  79. ^ The Zoist. H. Baillière. 1853. pp. 311–2.
  80. ^ a b Lauer, L. E. "Whately, (Elizabeth)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/59106. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  81. ^ John Nichols (1849). The Gentleman's Magazine. E. Cave. p. 313.
  82. ^ Laura Lynn Windsor (2002). Women in Medicine: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 214. ISBN 978-1-57607-392-6.
  83. ^ "Wale, Charles Brent (WL836CB)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  84. ^ Elizabeth Jane Whately (1866). Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately, D.D.: Late Archbishop of Dublin. Longmans, Green, and Company. p. 472.
  85. ^ Elizabeth Jane Whately (1866). Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately, D.D.: Late Archbishop of Dublin. Vol. 2. Longmans, Green, and Company. p. 381.
  86. ^ R. Charles Mollan (17 July 2014). William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse: Astronomy and the Castle in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. Oxford University Press. p. 86. ISBN 978-0-7190-9144-5.

External links edit

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