An Unwanted Christmas Present

Just before Christmas 1826, a spendidly bound copy of the annual, Ackermann's Forget Me Not* arrived at Shrigley Hall near Macclesfield, home of William Turner, High Sheriff of Cheshire, as a gift for his fiteen-year-old daughter and heiress, Ellen.

To the fury of Ellen's family, a close examination of the unexpected gift revealed that it had been sent by non other than the thirty-year-old Lothario, Edward Gibbon Wakefield who was on bail awaiting trial for the audacious abduction of Ellen in March of that year, after which he had carried her off to Gretna Green where he had tricked her into marriage.

So as not to encourage any hope that Wakefield might have that Mr Turner would allow the runaway marriage of Wakefield and Ellen  to stand, Mr Grimsditch, the family solicitor, advised that it would be wise to treat the gift as if it had never arrived.                      

 

*Forget Me Not, which was frequently spendidly bound, contained, engravings, essays, fiction, poems, weather guides, and other practical information.

By 1826, the annual had become a popular Christmas gift.  Indeed the very year that Ellen received a copy from Wakefield her father had also given her the annual for Christmas.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

17 April On this day, 193 years ago, Edward Gibbon Wakefield the 'ruthless ravisher' handed himself in to a magistrate in Macclesfield, Cheshire, close to the home of Ellen Turner the 15-year-old school girl and heiress, who just a month earlier he had abducted from her school, before carrying her off to Gretna Green where he had tricked her into marriage.  Wakefield, had then taken his young bride across the Channel to Calais where the authorities eventually caught up with the runaways.  Two of Ellen's uncles, a Bow Street runner and her father's redoutable attorney, Mr Grimsditch arrived with a warrant, signed by Canning, the British Foreign Secretary, for the arrest of Wakefield.  However, whilst Ellen was taken home to Cheshire to be restored to her family, Wakefield chose to remain in France well aware that the British warrant was unenforeceable in France. However, Ellen was a prize too valuable to relinquish so easily.  With an arrogance based on past suc...
Read more

Ellen Turner's Education

Ellen Turner was abducted from her boarding school, a Ladies' Seminary in Liverpool, run by the Daulby sisters - almost 50 miles from her home in Pott Shrigley near Macclesfield in Cheshire.                                               That Ellen was a pupil at such renowned school, was evidence not only of her privileged posiion in society but the enlightened and progressive view of education held by her parents, William and Jane Turner.  Girls in her position were usually educated at home by a governess but as her ambitious father's heir, Ellen was being prepared for a marriage equal to her father's expectations.  She received a broad education being tutored in history, reading,writing, languages as well as drawing and music and was, it appears,...
Read more