Author: Craven, Eliza Sutherland
Biography:
CRAVEN, Eliza Sutherland, later Eliza Craven Green (1803-66: ODNB)
She was the eldest child of John Craven, an appraiser, and his wife Elizabeth Brazier, who had married in St. Peter’s, Leeds, on 10 Mar. 1803. Eliza was born on 10 Dec. 1803 and baptised in St. Peter’s on 30 Nov. 1807. Sutherland, which she adopted as a middle name, was the birth surname of her maternal grandmother. In 1807 her mother set up a girls’ school in Kirkgate, Leeds. In 1809 John Craven abandoned his family; a newspaper notice seeking information on his whereabouts describes him as short with a strutting gait and wearing a blue jacket. Eliza and her sister Anne became actors and visited the Isle of Man where they performed in 1823-25 with the New Theatre in Douglas. They returned to the mainland when the theatre closed in 1825 but the island had made an indelible impression on Eliza and her 1825 book features poems set there. She also contributed to the collection edited by Thomas Ashe (q.v.), The Pier and Bay of Douglas (1825), and in 1828 published stories set in the Isle of Man in The Phoenix, or Manchester Literary Journal. On 13 May 1828 she married James Green in Wakefield, Yorkshire; at the time of the marriage they were both actors with The Theatre, Manchester. They had six children (three died in infancy) and alternated living in Manchester and Leeds. She published as Eliza Craven Green or Eliza S. Craven Green and contributed poems and tales to periodicals, including the Leeds Intelligencer. Her song, “Ellan Vannin” (that is, the Isle of Manannan), became an unofficial anthem for the island. Sea Weeds and Heath Flowers, or, Memories of Mona was published in 1858 and went to a second edition in 1866. She and her husband began living separately and she was granted £25 from the Queen’s bounty fund. After his death in 1861 she edited and published the poems of James Waddington as Flowers from the Glen (1862). She suffered from poor health towards the end of her life but her death on 11 Mar. 1866 at her home on Meanwood Street, Little London, Leeds, was unexpected. She was buried in the churchyard of St. Mark’s, Woodhouse, Leeds. (ODNB 18 Apr. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 18 Apr. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 18 Apr. 2024; Leeds Intelligencer 12 Jan. 1807, 14 Aug. 1809, 17 Mar. 1866; Oracle and Daily Advertiser 22 Mar. 1803) SR
Other Names:
- E. S. [Eliza Sutherland] Craven
- Eliza Craven Green