Sarah Maud Goff Heckford (30 June 1839 – 17 April 1903) was an Anglo-Irish philanthropist, writer, and traveller. She was co-founder of an

East London East London is the part of London, England, east of the ancient City of London and north of the River Thames as it begins to widen. East London developed as London Docklands, London's docklands and the primary industrial centre. The expansion of ...

hospital for women and children, and author of ''A Lady Trader in the Transvaal'' (1882).

Early life

Sarah Maud Goff was born in

Blackrock, Dublin Blackrock () is an affluent suburb of Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, northwest of Dún Laoghaire. It is named after the local geological rock formation to be found in the area of Blackrock Park. In the late 18th century, the Blackrock Ro ...

, the daughter of William Goff and Mary Clibborn. Her father was a banker. Sarah Goff survived tuberculosis as a child, with lasting effects on her posture and gait. By the time she was ten years old, both her parents and her eldest sister had died, and she was living in the care of an aunt and under the guardianship of an uncle, first in Switzerland, then in Paris, and finally in London.Vivien Allen
"Sarah Maud Heckford"
in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford University Press 2004).

Career

Sarah Maud Goff inherited enough money to live fairly independently in

Belgravia Belgravia () is a district in Central London, covering parts of the areas of the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Belgravia was known as the 'Five Fields' during the Tudor Period, and became a dangerous pla ...

, with her older sister, Anne. Sarah and Anne both volunteered as nurses during the cholera epidemic in 1866. Soon after, she co-founded the East London Hospital for Children and Dispensary for Women with her new husband. Dr.

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (9 June 1836 – 17 December 1917) was an English physician and suffragist. She is known for being the first woman to qualify in Britain as a physician and surgeon and as a co-founder and dean of the London School o ...

was a visiting physician there and

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

publicized the Heckfords' work in two chapters titled "A Small Star in the East". and "On An Amateur Beat" in his "Uncommercial Traveller". The hospital merged with other institutions and from 1942 was known as the

Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children The Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children was based in Bethnal Green in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London. In 1996, the hospital became part of The Royal Hospitals NHS Trust, later renamed Barts and The London NHS Trust. In 1998, the se ...

. After she was widowed, she continued working on expanding the hospital's offerings, and wrote her first book, ''The Life of Christ and its Bearing on the Doctrines of Communism'' (1873). She set off to travel after hospital business was settled, first to Naples (where her daughter married), then to India, where she worked as an informal medical missionary treating women (see

Zenana mission The zenana missions were outreach programmes established in British India with the aim of Conversion to Christianity, converting women to Christianity. From the mid 19th century, they sent female missionaries into the homes of women in India, Ind ...

). She moved to South Africa in 1878, hoping to become a farmer, but she discovered that she had been cheated in her arrangements, and took a position as a

governess A governess is a woman employed as a private tutor, who teaches and trains a child or children in their home. A governess often lives in the same residence as the children she is teaching; depending on terms of their employment, they may or ma ...

for two years instead. With her earnings she bought a cart and oxen and had some success as an itinerant trader, which she wrote about in another book, ''A Lady Trader in the Transvaal'' (1882). She went back to London to publish her first novel, ''Excelsior'' (1884), and another book, ''The Story of the East London Hospital'' (1887). She spent her later years in South Africa, starting a new farm in

Soutpansberg The Soutpansberg (formerly Zoutpansberg), meaning "Salt Pan Mountain" in Afrikaans, is a Mountain range, range of mountains in far northern South Africa. It is located in Vhembe District Municipality, Vhembe District, Limpopo. It is named for t ...

, and trying her hand at

gold mining Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from Alluvium, alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to mor ...

(the subject of her next book, ''True Transvaal Tales''). She went back to governess work in the late 1890s, and as a harmless-seeming sixty-year-old lady, carried messages for the English during the

South African War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...

. In Pretoria, she wrote a study, ''Report on the educational needs of the Transvaal Colony from the Transvaal Women's Educational Union to the education department of the colony'' (1901). She gave lectures on a trip to London on South Africa, particularly encouraging teachers to emigrate there (see

Women's Emigration Society The Women's Emigration Society was a 19th-century English organization devoted to helping poor young women Emigration, emigrate from England to the colonies of the British Empire. It was superseded by other organisations and alliances. History Soci ...

Personal life

Sarah Maud Goff married

Nathaniel Heckford Nathaniel Heckford (1842–1871) was a paediatrician in Victorian London, who founded the East London Hospital for Children. He met his future wife, Sarah Goff, during the 1866 cholera epidemic in Wapping, where he first determined a need ...

, a doctor she met while nursing during the 1866 cholera outbreak, in 1867. She was widowed when he died in 1870, from tuberculosis. She raised an adopted daughter, Marian. Sarah Maud Heckford died in 1903, aged 63 years, in Pretoria. A full-length biography of Sarah Maud Heckford was published in 1979.Vivien Allen
''Lady Trader: A Biography of Mrs. Sarah Heckford''
(Collins 1979); 2nd ed (Protea Book House 2010).

References

External links

* Charles Dickens'
''A Small Star in the East''
(The description of the Children's Hospital begins at page 416.) * Charles Dickens
''On An Amateur Beat''
(The Children's Hospital is described at pages 281-2.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Heckford, Sarah Maud 1839 births 1903 deaths English travel writers British women travel writers