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. The burial register entry should probably stand but there is compelling counter-evidence. 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