Author: Hardcastle, Eliza Mary
Biography:
HARDCASTLE, Eliza Mary (1810-33: Memoir)
She was born on 27 Oct. 1810 and baptised 15 July 1811 at St. John the Evangelist, Leeds, the daughter of William Hardcastle, of St. James’s Street, a bookseller and stationer. He later traded from 23 Cross-Parish, Leeds, and advertised a variety of stock from fashionable screens to family bibles. It is unclear who her mother was. Her baptism register entry only gives her father; her burial register entry gives her mother as Mary. Although there is no reason to doubt the burial register entry, it is known that her mother kept a school at Otley. Pigot’s Directory (1834) gives Ann Grace Hardcastle as running a school in Borough Gate. This may have been the Ann Grace Gent who married William Hardcastle on 13 Jan. 1802, at St. Peter’s, Leeds. After leaving school, Eliza Mary became a Sunday School teacher, probably in Leeds. On her father’s death in March 1829, she moved with her mother and younger sister to Otley where her mother opened a school. Eliza Mary also taught there and established a female Bible Association. By Dec. 1832 she had developed symptoms of sickness and a cough, probably consumption. She died on 2 Mar. 1833 and was buried at Otley on 6 Mar. A funeral sermon was delivered on 17 Mar. by the Rev. Henry Robinson. In addition to the "Memoir," the posthumous publication includes her hymns, a poem on her father’s death, poems written in sickness, and her prose "Reflections" on her imminent death. (Memoir of a Beloved Daughter [1834]; Leeds Intelligencer 6 Dec. 1819; Leeds Directory 1822; Pigot’s Directory 1834 [Otley]; All Saints, Otley, grave 141351) AA