Today, let's reflect on the life of my great grandmother on my maternal side, Ellen Eldridge, who was born on this day in 1868 in Bodiam, Sussex, England.
The last public hanging of a woman in Britain happened in 1868. Frances Kidder was hung outside Maidstone Prison by William Calcraft for drowning her stepdaughter.
Ellen Eldridge was the daughter of William Eldridge (1843-1868) and Caroline Poile (1847-1927) and was baptised a month later in Bodiam on 3 Jan 1869. Before marriage she was a domestic servant and had lived in Stonegate. She married George William Clark, a postman in Salehurst on 28 Sep 1889 when he was 20 and she was 20. One of the marriage witnesses was William Good who was her step father; her mother Caroline having married him after her first husband, William Eldridge had died. George and Ellen built their life together in Hastings, where they raised their children until Ellen's untimely death in June 1905. My mother often recounted how her mother, Ellen's only daughter, had to care for her brothers until George remarried in 1907.
On this same day in 1882, the renowned English novelist and poet Anthony Trollope passed away. I often wonder if Ellen enjoyed reading his novels and whether she passed on a love of literature through the generations.
It's unlikely that Ellen ever visited London, but on December 6, 1897, London became the world's first city to host licensed taxicabs. This innovation in transportation marked a milestone in the modernization of urban life, a world away from the rural settings where Ellen lived.
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| George and Ellen |
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