Author: Iliff, Mary
Biography:
ILIFF, Mary, formerly SEAWELL (1772-1856: findmypast.co.uk)
She was born 15 Feb. 1772 at Plumtree, Nottinghamshire, the daughter of Branstone Seawell and his second wife, Elizabeth Bagley. He acquired an estate at Normanton-on-the-Wolds shortly after his marriage and on his death in 1786, this was divided between the children of his two marriages. In 1787 Mary's half-sister Elizabeth married Thomas Basnett, a surgeon. Mary Seawell married William Tiffin Iliff, also a surgeon, in London, on 8 May 1797. He seems to have been in financial difficulty soon after they married and was declared bankrupt in 1798. By 1800 he had signed up as a Hospital Mate and went to serve in Egypt. He subsequently became an apothecary and surgeon in Malta. He retired on half-pay in 1822 but continued to practise until his death on 12 Oct. 1830. In all he spent nearly thirty years in Malta. Mary Iliff successfully applied for an Army widow’s pension and gave her address as 4 Tenterden Street, Hanover Square. At some point she moved to South London, probably to be closer to her son and grandson who practised as surgeons at 18-19 Canterbury Row, Newington. She died, aged 84, at Kennington Row, 25 Nov. 1856. Hitherto, she has been incorrectly identified as the actress wife of Edward Henry Iliff, but the subscribers list and internal evidence from the poems prove this not to be the case. Various members of the extended Basnett and Seawell families subscribed to her first volume Poems (1808) and two of her sister’s children were the subjects of poems. (ancestry.co.uk 21 Jul. 2020; findmypast.co.uk 21 Jul. 2020; GM June 1797, 524; Watkins; Nottinghamshire Guardian 4 Dec. 1856; maltaramc.com/staffmo/i/iliff) AA
Other Names:
- Mrs. [Mary] Iliff