Eliza Fay (1755 or 1756 – 9 September 1816) was an English letter writer and traveller. She is best known for her vivid accounts of her journeys and experiences in Europe, the Middle East, and India.ODNB entry
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Early life

Eliza Fay was born in 1755 or 1756, probably in

Rotherhithe Rotherhithe ( ) is a district of South London, England, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse on the north bank, with the Isle of Dogs to the ea ...

, Surrey. She was one of three known daughters of Edward Clement (died 1794), a shipwright from Rotherhithe. Her mother died in or before 1783. Little is known about her family. One of her sisters, Eleanor, married Thomas W. Preston. Eliza married Anthony Fay, a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

, on 6 February 1772 in London. The only son of Francis Fay of Rotherhithe, Surrey, and of Irish extraction, Anthony intended to practise as an

advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. List of country legal systems, Different countries and legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a ba ...

in the

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

Supreme Court. The couple set out for India in April 1779. He was admitted to practice there on 16 June 1780, but subsequently ran into debt and fathered an illegitimate child before returning to England, where he died some time before 1815. The couple separated in August 1781. There were no children from the marriage.

Passages to India

Fay's graphic letters begin in Paris on 18 April 1779; her account suggests that she had visited France several times before. This is followed by an eventful journey across the Alps, then by sea to Egypt, and across the deserts of Egypt in a caravan that was attacked by bandits, culminating in imprisonment upon arrival in

Calicut Kozhikode (), also known as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. Known as the City of Spices, Kozhikode is listed among the City of Literature, UNESCO's Cities of Literature. It is the nineteenth large ...

Hyder Ali Hyder Ali (''Haidar'alī''; ; 1720 – 7 December 1782) was the Sultan and ''de facto'' ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in southern India. Born as Hyder Ali, he distinguished himself as a soldier, eventually drawing the attention of Mysore's ...

, ruler of the

Kingdom of Mysore The Kingdom of Mysore was a geopolitical realm in southern India founded in around 1399 in the vicinity of the modern-day city of Mysore and prevailed until 1950. The territorial boundaries and the form of government transmuted substantially ...

. Eventually escaping with the help of a Jewish merchant from

Cochin Kochi ( , ), formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of Kerala. The city is also commonly referred to as Ernaku ...

, Mr Isaac, she and her husband arrived in Calcutta in May 1780. The letters reveal considerable narrative power and include what

E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author. He is best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910) and '' A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous shor ...

, her editor, described as "little character sketches... delightfully malicious." Fay appears to have had strong religious convictions and a distaste for indelicacy, along with a command of French and an ability to learn other languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, and Hindustani, with remarkable speed, although she had little formal education. During her first period in Calcutta, she found her way into local society, meeting several prominent figures, including

Warren Hastings Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818) was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first governor-gener ...

. However, this goodwill may have been eroded by the wild behaviour of her husband, or possibly by her own ill temper. She showed more interest than many contemporaries in the life of Indians around her, providing a wealth of detailed observations. Fay obtained a legal separation from her husband in August 1781,Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy: ''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present'' (

Batsford Batsford is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Cotswold (district), Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, England. The village is about north-west of Moreton-in-Marsh. There is a falconry centre close to the village ...

: London, 1990), p. 360. and returned to England via

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

and

Saint Helena Saint Helena (, ) is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km ...

in 1782, but set out again for India in 1784. This time, her social status was lower; she supported herself with a

millinery Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter. Historically, milliners made and sold a range of accessories for clothing and hairstyles. ...

shop and by

mantua Mantua ( ; ; Lombard language, Lombard and ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Italian region of Lombardy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, eponymous province. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the "Italian Capital of Culture". In 2 ...

making. Although she was declared bankrupt in 1788, she continued to trade and paid off her creditors by 1793. Her observations and interpretations of Indian society continued. Of

suttee Sati or suttee is a practice, a chiefly historical one, Quote: Between 1943 and 1987, some thirty women in Rajasthan (twenty-eight, according to official statistics) immolated themselves on their husband's funeral pyre. This figure probably fa ...

(the immolation of widows), she opined that it was not a proof of feeling, but "entirely a political scheme intended to insure the care and good offices of wives to their husbands." Her business partner, Avis Hicks, and Anthony Fay’s son, whom Hicks was accompanying to England, drowned at sea in September 1786. Returning to England in 1794, Eliza inherited property in

Glamorgan Glamorgan (), or sometimes Glamorganshire ( or ), was Historic counties of Wales, one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974. It is located in the South Wales, south of Wales. Originally an ea ...

following the death of her father, and became a merchant. However, she was dogged by misfortunes, and bankruptcy ensued again in 1800. Her third visit to Calcutta, in 1796, lasted only six months. She acquired another ship, loaded it with

muslin Muslin () is a cotton fabric of plain weave. It is made in a wide range of weights from delicate sheers to coarse sheeting. It is commonly believed that it gets its name from the city of Mosul, Iraq. Muslin was produced in different regions o ...

s, and set off for the United States, but the vessel sank at the mouth of the Hooghly. Nevertheless, she managed by other means to reach

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, arriving on 3 September 1797. Sailing again for Calcutta in August 1804, she returned the following year with 14 children to open a school at Ashburnham House, Blackheath. She continued to run the school with a partner, Maria Cousins, until 1814. She stayed in Blackheath with Mrs Preston in 1815, before embarking on a final voyage to Calcutta, where she began preparing her letters and papers for publication. She died at the age of 60 on 9 September 1816 in Calcutta.

Editions of the letters

Fay died insolvent, and her invaluable letters were handled by the administrator of her estate as one of her few remaining assets. Her account of her first two voyages appeared in 1817 and, according to official records, generated a profit of 220 rupees for her creditors over four years. However, the administrator "lost enthusiasm," according to

, so that the published versions cover events only up to 1797. The volume was reprinted in 1821. Later glimpses of her life, including surviving manuscript pages and materials from English court and other archives, come from notes compiled by her 1908 editor, Walter Kelly Firminger (1870–1940), author of the long-running ''Thacker's Guide to Calcutta.'' This edition was later superseded by a scholarly edition edited by E. M. Forster, published by the

Hogarth Press The Hogarth Press is a book publishing Imprint (trade name), imprint of Penguin Random House that was founded as an independent company in 1917 by British authors Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in London Boro ...

in 1925. In 2010, Forster's edition was reprinted by

New York Review Books New York Review Books (NYRB) is the publishing division of ''The New York Review of Books''. Its imprints are New York Review Books Classics, New York Review Books Collections, The New York Review Children's Collection, New York Review Comics, ...

, with a new introduction by

Simon Winchester Simon Winchester (born 28 September 1944) is a British-American author and journalist. In his career at ''The Guardian'' newspaper, Winchester covered numerous significant events, including Bloody Sunday (1972), Bloody Sunday and the Watergate S ...

References

Bibliography

*E. M. Forster: Introductory Notes. In: ''Original Letters from India'' (New York: NYRB, 2010

925 Year 925 ( CMXXV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. Events By date January – June * January 5 – Gabellus becomes the first abbot of the monsastery of San Martín de Albelda in the Spanish kingdom ...

. *Joan Mickelson-Gaughan, ''The "incumberances" '' ic': British Women in India, 1615–1856'', 1st ed., New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013

Primary Sources

*Eliza Fay, ''Original Letters from India, 1779–1815'' (London, 1925)

Additional reading

*Linda Colley, "Going Native, Telling Tales: Captivity, Collaborations and Empire", ''Past & Present'', No. 168 (2000), pp. 170–193. Accessed 8 February 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/651308 *Matthew Lockwood, "The birth of British India". ''To Begin the World Over Again: How the American Revolution Devastated the Globe'', pp. 274–313. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2019. Accessed 8 February 2021. doi:10.2307/j.ctvnwc044.15. *Mohamad Ali Hachicho, "English Travel Books about the Arab near East in the Eighteenth Century". ''Die Welt des Islams'', New Series 9, no. 1/4 (1964), pp. 1–206. Accessed 8 February 2021. oi:10.2307/1570430. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1570430./ref> {{DEFAULTSORT:Fay, Eliza 1750s births 1816 deaths 18th-century English women writers 19th-century English women writers 19th-century English writers English letter writers English women letter writers People from Rotherhithe English women travel writers English travel writers Writers from the London Borough of Southwark British milliners 18th-century English businesspeople British people in colonial India 19th-century English diarists 19th-century British letter writers