Author: Erskine, Eliza Bland
Biography:
ERSKINE, Eliza Bland, formerly SMITH, later NORTON (1795-1855: ancestry.co.uk, findmypast.co.uk)
She was born in 1795 in Whitehaven, Cumberland, the daughter of Lt. Colonel John Smith and his wife Jane. She married Lt. Esme Stuart Erskine on 19 Mar. 1809 at Stranraer. He was a career officer in the army, had served in the Peninsular War, lost an arm at Waterloo, was promoted to Lt. Colonel and made Adjutant-General of Ceylon, but died 26 Aug. 1817 at sea en route to taking up his post. At the time of his death, she had five small children and had published two volumes of poetry, Isabel, a Tale (1814) and Alcon Malanzore (1815). She then married James Norton, a naval officer, on 3 Nov. 1819 at Bombay; with him she had a further six children. In 1823 he was commissioned frigate captain in the Brazilian navy. Three of her children were born in Brazil. James Norton died on 29 Aug. 1835 at sea off the coast of New Zealand. In 1841 she was living off Hanover Square, London, with two of her children. In the 1830s and 1840s she contributed to the Annuals. By 1851 she had moved to Newark, Nottinghamshire, where her deceased second husband’s family had land and property. She was living with her daughter Brazilia and her three grandchildren. She died, aged 61, on 20 Sept. 1855 in Baden-Baden at the home of her son-in-law Frederic Hamilton, a career diplomat, who had married her eldest daughter. (ancestry.co.uk 5 Aug. 2020; Morning Chronicle 25 Feb. 1818; Scotland's People; findmypast.co.uk 5 Aug. 2020; Asiatic Journal 9 June 1820; Boyle; Morning Post 29 Sept. 1855; GM Nov. 1855, 556.) AA
Other Names:
- Hon. Mrs. Esme Steuart Erskine