|
|
|
"Scorn no man's love, tho' of a mean degree..." Ellen Augusta Hall was the youngest of all the siblings in the Hall family. Like her sister Emily, she spend all of her younger years with her family on Jersey, and then moved with them to West Wickham after the death of her mother in 1841. Ellen's earliest diary dates from 1838, but I believe that this volume was actually written up, from notes that she had made at the actual time, in 1839. That she should take the time to do this is not surprising, given her great love of literature and of writing things herself. Like Emily, she loved to spend hours journalising and often jotted down the other things she had read. Some of the books she enjoyed are still regularly read today. "Dear, darling Nicholas Nickleby came today and I enjoyed reading it very much." Ellen was considered something of a beauty and her diaries tell of the many encounters she had with prospective suitors. The account of her life by Sherrard certainly concentrates on her many romantic encounters. However, in the earliest diary that I have been reading she was still in her teens, and her interest at this stage lay more with her day to day life of visiting friends, her hobbies and, above all, her family. Her siblings were very important in her life, and she was deeply affected when her elder brother Charles left for Australia. "I am alive, but Oh! What a black is life. My precious brother gone. I shall see him no more..." As all her brothers had left home, she was closest on a day to day basis to her two sisters, Emily and Louisa. While living in St. Helier, she often helped them with their philanthropic duties, going with Louisa to a teachers meeting, and helping Emily collect subscriptions for the soup kitchen. Even though she was the youngest, she wasn't afraid to tell her elder sisters what to do from time to time. She records in her diary one day when they were supposed to be up bright and early to help distribute food to the poor and she found Emily was as keen as she might be! "I was expecting to find Emily ready, but she was in bed still_I gave her a very good scolding and left her promising to get up."
Ellen in later years. Photo: Bromley Library She died in 1911. However, her diaries stop in 1901, the same year that her sister and life-long companion, Emily, died. You can read more about Ellen's later life in Joyce Walker's Vanished West Wickham (Hollies Publications, 1994) and in the volumes by Sherrard and Mills.
|
Despite
many, many offers of marriage, Ellen chose to remain single
throughout her life. She spent most of it with her sister, Emily, with
whom she lived at Ravenswood, their home in