
Emma Hosken (also Emma Hosken Woodward; 11 August 184516 July 1884) was a
British
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Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
novelist of the
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...
. Her last novel was published posthumously in 1885 by her husband
Bernard Barham Woodward.
Hosken was born in 1845 in
Penryn 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, ...
, the daughter of Richard Hosken and Emily (née Nettle). She married her distant cousin the Rev. Thomas Butterfill Hosken, the
Rector of
Llandefaelog Fach in Wales. The couple had three children; her infant son and husband died of
diphtheria
Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacteria, bacterium ''Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild Course (medicine), clinical course, but in some outbreaks, the mortality rate approaches 10%. Signs a ...
in 1869 and 1870 respectively following which Hosken and her two daughters returned to Penryn to live with her mother.
[Hosken on 'At the Circulating Library - A Database of Victorian Fiction 1837-1901]
/ref>
As a widow Hosken wrote two anonymous novels, ''Married for Money'' (1875) and ''Bitter to Sweet End'' (1877). In 1881 she was a boarder at the Sisters of Mercy in Holborn
Holborn ( or ), an area in central London, covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part (St Andrew Holborn (parish), St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Wards of the City of London, Ward of Farringdon Without i ...
.The Bloomsbury Project - University College London
/ref> In 1882 she married Bernard Barham Woodward (1854–1930), nine years her junior and the Librarian at the Natural History Museum
A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleo ...
but she died in July 1884. Woodward posthumously published her last book, ''Men, Women, and Progress'' (1885), a political discussion advocating "certain much-needed reforms" relating to the rights of women.[
She is buried with her second husband Bernard Barham Woodward and his second wife in ]Brookwood Cemetery
Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe. The cemetery is listed a Grade I site in the Regist ...
in Surrey.
Bibliography
* ''Married for Money'', 1 vol., Samuel Tinsley, London (1875)
* ''Bitter to Sweet End: A Novel'', 3 vol., Samuel Tinsley, London (1877)
* ''Men, Women, and Progress'', Delau & Co, London (1885)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hosken, Emma
1845 births
1884 deaths
English women novelists
Victorian novelists
Victorian women writers
Victorian writers
British feminist writers
Burials at Brookwood Cemetery
People from Penryn, Cornwall