Katherine Jane "Janie" Gordon Ellice (née Balfour; 1813 – 13 April 1864) was a Scottish

diarist A diary is a writing, written or audiovisual Memorabilia, memorable record, with discrete entries arranged by Calendar date, date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwriti ...

and artist. She is most remembered for her chronicle and

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour ( Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting method"Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to the ...

s of a trip to Canada, in 1838, where she and her sister were taken prisoner during the

Battle of Beauharnois The Battle of Beauharnois was fought on November 10, 1838, between Lower Canada loyalists and Patriote rebels, after 500 armed men had converged on Beauharnois, on November 3–4, overtaking the seigneurial manor. The seigneury of Beauharnois b ...

Life

She was born in 1813, the second daughter of eight children of Eglantine Katherine Fordyce (1789–1851) and Robert Balfour of Balbirnie. "She spoke Italian and French, was an accomplished sketcher and watercolourist, and played the piano and guitar." She married Edward Ellice on 15 July 1834.K. D. Reynolds, "Ellice, Katherine Jane anie(1813–1864)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 3 April 2018.
/ref> On 24 April 1838, she boarded HMS ''

Hastings Hastings ( ) is a seaside town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to th ...

'' and accompanied her husband, Edward Ellice to Canada in his capacity as private secretary to his cousin (by marriage)

John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, (12 April 1792 – 28 July 1840), also known as "Radical Jack" and commonly referred to in Canadian history texts as Lord Durham, was a British Whigs (British political party), Whig statesman, colonial ...

, who was ''en route'' to his appointments as

Governor-General of the Province of Canada The Governor General of the Province of Canada was the viceregal post of the pre-Confederation Province of Canada that existed from 1841 to Canadian Confederation in 1867. The post replaced the Governor General of New France and later Governor Ge ...

and

Lieutenant-Governor of Lower Canada The lieutenant governor of Quebec (; , ) is the representative in Quebec of the monarch, who operates distinctly within the province but is also shared equally with the ten other jurisdictions of Canada. The lieutenant governor of Quebec is app ...

Captivity during Battle of Beauharnois

During the

, she, her husband, and her sister—along with the general household—were taken by surprise during a nighttime siege led by

François-Marie-Thomas Chevalier de Lorimier François-Marie-Thomas Chevalier de Lorimier (December 27, 1803 – February 15, 1839), also known under shorter names such as François-Marie-Thomas de Lorimier, Marie-Thomas Chevalier de Lorimier or Chevalier de Lorimier, was a Notary public, no ...

, then held as prisoners. Her husband was held separately. She negotiated with the rebels, and they were allowed to remove to the home of the Catholic priest, then allowed to obtain meat and milk from the Ellices' livestock, to sustain the, eventually, 62 people sequestered together in what she described as the Ellice house "converted into a regular prison".Jane Ellice, ''The diary of Jane Ellice''; edited by Patricia Godsell (Oberon Press, 1975), p. 139.. That day, 10 November 1838, the British won the battle, rebel leaders were taken prisoner, and the

loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...

prisoners were freed. Mrs. Ellice had written a diary and made sketches of the "picturesque ruffians". Lord Durham had resigned 9 October 1838, and returned to England, which the Ellice household had been scheduled to do on 9 November, but were then captives. They then returned to England on 26 December 1838.

Art

Katherine Jane Ellice studied drawing with Lord Durham's drawing master, Coke Smyth, who gave lessons to Katherine and Lady Durham in Canada.John Richard Coke Smyth (1808-82)
Coke-Smyth.com, Retrieved 20 June 2016. Her self-portrait at sea aboard ''HMS'' Hastings—the ship the Ellices had arrived to Canada aboard on 27 May 1838—is shown on this page. Ellice's

depictions of aspects of the 1837 Rebellion, painted while residing in Beauharnois, as well as other works representing Quebec, are included in her art album which is now held at the

Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; ) is the federal institution tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is the 16th largest library in the world. T ...

. A copy of her diary is also housed at the

. In 2015, her work was included in ''The Artist Herself: Self-Portraits by Canadian Historical Artists'', an exhibition co-curated by

Alicia Boutilier Alicia Boutilier (born 1968) is the Chief Curator and Curator of Canadian Historical Art at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston. She has been Curator of Canadian Historical Art since 2008 and was appointed Chief Curator in 2017.Alicia Bo ...

and

Tobi Bruce Tobi Bruce (born 1965) has been the Director of Exhibitions and Collections and Senior Curator at the Art Gallery of Hamilton since 2015.Tobi Bruce file, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, Canada She is a Canadian art historian who ...

who also co-edited the book/catalogue.

Later life

Her father-in-law, Edward Ellice—who had furnished her with the diary and the task of filling it on her journey abroad—was a frequent host to notable visitors to Scotland, thought highly of "Janie" and so enlisted her, in 1859, as hostess, when the artist Richard Doyle visited; she was given an illustrated diary of a journey to the islands of Rona and

Skye The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye, is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated by the Cuillin, the rocky slopes of which provide some o ...

.The Log of the Ladye
Scan.org, Retrieved 20 June 2017 In 1853, her sister, Eglantyne "Tina", married the cousin of her husband, Robert Ellice (1816–1858), son of General

Robert Ellice General Robert Ellice (13 October 1784 – 18 June 1856) was a British Army officer. Military career Born the son of Scottish merchant and fur trader Alexander Ellice and brother of Edward Ellice and Alexander Ellice, Ellice was commissione ...

. Following her death, in 1864, Edward Ellice remarried.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellice, Katherine 1813 births 1864 deaths 19th-century Scottish diarists 19th-century Scottish painters 19th-century Scottish women painters 19th-century Scottish women writers Clan Balfour Lower Canada Rebellion people Scottish watercolourists British women diarists Women in war in Canada Victorian women writers Victorian writers Scottish women watercolourists Ellice family Scottish expatriates in Canada