Eliza Fenwick (; 1 February 1767 – 8 December 1840) was a Cornish
author, whose works include ''Secresy; or The Ruin on the Rock'' (1795) and several children's books. She was born in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...
, married an alcoholic, and had two children by him. She left him and eventually went to live with her children in
Barbados
Barbados, officially the Republic of Barbados, is an island country in the Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies and the easternmost island of the Caribbean region. It lies on the boundary of the South American ...
, where she ran a school with her daughter.
[Jarndyce Booksellers' catalogue ''Women Writers 1795–1927 Part I: A–F'' (London, Summer 2017).]
Biography
Eliza Jaco was born on 1 February 1767 at
Pelynt
Pelynt ( or ) is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is 20 miles (32 km) west of Plymouth and four miles (6.5 km) west-northwest of Looe. Pelynt had a population of around 1,124 at the 2001 census wh ...
, Cornwall. Her parents were Peter and Elizabeth Jaco (née Hawkswotorth), and she was baptized Elizabeth on 25 June 1766. She married in the 1780s the writer
John Fenwick, who became an alcoholic and fell in debt.
They had two children, Eliza and Orlando. She took up tasks such as working as a governess to make family ends meet, but eventually left Fenwick and moved to Ireland as a governess in 1807.
By this time, Fenwick's daughter had moved to the
West Indies
The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...
to be an actress, and married William Rutherford, by whom she had four children. Fenwick and her son, Orlando, joined her daughter in Barbados in 1814, but Orlando died of
yellow fever in 1816. In 1819, Fenwick's son-in-law left the family, leaving the mother and daughter to bring up the four children. The pair ran a
secondary school
A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...
, which provided income and ensured the children's own education. Fenwick owned several enslaved people who worked in the school and her household.
Fenwick's daughter died in 1828, leaving her to raise the children alone.
[ By 1835 she was living in the United states and she died in 1840 in ]Providence, Rhode Island
Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...
.
Writing
Throughout her life Fenwick corresponded with friends who included Mary Hays, Thomas Holcroft
Thomas Holcroft (10 December 174523 March 1809) was an English dramatist, miscellanist, poet, novelist and translator. He was sympathetic to the early ideas of the French Revolution and helped Thomas Paine to publish the first part of ''The Ri ...
, William Godwin
William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism and the first modern proponent of anarchism. Godwin is most famous fo ...
, Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft ( , ; 27 April 175910 September 1797) was an English writer and philosopher best known for her advocacy of women's rights. Until the late 20th century, Wollstonecraft's life, which encompassed several unconventional ...
, Charlotte Turner Smith, and Charles
Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''* ...
and Mary Lamb
Mary Anne Lamb (3 December 1764 – 20 May 1847) was an English writer. She is best known for the collaboration with her brother Charles Lamb, Charles on the collection ''Tales from Shakespeare'' (1807). Mary suffered from mental illness, and i ...
. Much of the correspondence survives. Her epistolary novel
An epistolary novel () is a novel written as a series of letters between the fictional characters of a narrative. The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse other kinds of fictional document with the letters, most commonly di ...
''Secresy; or The Ruin on the Rock'' was published as "By a Woman" in 1795. Her subsequent works were written for children, sometimes under the pseudonym Rev. David Blair.[ ''Mary and Her Cat'' (1804) was advertised as being "in words not exceeding two syllables".][Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy (eds): ''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present'' (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 365.]
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fenwick. Eliza
1767 births
1840 deaths
19th-century English women writers
British emigrants to Barbados
English governesses
British slave owners
Novelists from Cornwall
Schoolteachers from Cornwall
English women children's writers
English women novelists
Pseudonymous women writers
People from Pelynt
18th-century English women writers
18th-century pseudonymous writers
19th-century pseudonymous writers
Women slave owners
19th-century Barbadian people
18th-century Barbadian people
British emigrants to the British West Indies
19th-century English women educators
19th-century English educators