Hitchener, Elizabeth |
| TEACHER, POET (ENGLAND) |
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BORN 1783, Keymer, West Sussex - DIED 4 Dec 1821, London: Edmonton, Enfield GRAVE LOCATION Keymer, West Sussex: St Cosmas and St Damian Churchyard, Keymer Road (north side) |
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Elizabeth Hitchener was the daughter of an innkeeper and former smuggler. She was baptised at Keymer, Sussex on 22 April 1783. Elizabeth was taught by a Miss Adams and she admired her teacher's radical views.She read widely and she started a school at Hurstpierpoint (now Abberton). She oped to employ Miss Adams at her school but this did not happen. One of her pupils was Emma Pilfold, the daughter of Captain John Pilfold (1769-1834), who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Through Pilford she met his nephew, the young poet Percy Bysshe Shellet. Shelley was 19 at the time and she was 29 and unmarried. She was tall, dark and handsome and Shelley wasted no time in idolizing her. They developed a close intellectual relationship and exchanged lots of letters about their radical ideas. He regarded her as a soulmate and as somebody he could educate and who would probably one day live with him and others in a community. Elizabeth helped Shelley with the spreading of copies of "The Devil's Walk". Despite warnings of Captain Pilford, she gave up her school to join the Shelley and his wife Harriet at Lyndmouth. This was a huge mistake. The Shelleys soon turned against her and Shelley called her 'an ugly, hermaphroditical beast of a woman' and 'The Brown Demon. She left and her relationship with Shelley was destroyed. ' Back in Hurstpierpoint, she was ridiculed and regarded by many as Shelley's mistress. Their is no evidence of a sexual relationship. But her reputation was damaged and she could not find pupils anymore. She may have gone abroad to work as a governess and the journalist Henry James Slack claimed that she married an Austrian officer. There is no proof for this, and it was the case, the marriage was shortlived. She started a new school in Edmonton together with her sister. She published three books, "The Fireside-Bagatelle: Containing Enigmas on the Chief Towns of England and Wales" (London, 1818), "The Weald of Sussex, a Poem" (1822) and "Enigmas, historical and geographical, by a clergyman's daughter" (completed shortly before her death and published in 1834). Her letters to Shelley were published in 1890. Related persons • was a friend of Shelley, Percy Bysshe |
Sources • Holmes, Richard, Shelley, The Pursuit, Penguin Books, London, 1987 • Elizabeth Hitchener - Wikipedia (EN) • Hitchener, Elizabeth • https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Letters_from_Percy_Bysshe_Shelley_to_Elizabeth_Hitchener_%28IA_frompercyletters02shelrich%29.pdf |
