Author: Oke, Eliza
Biography:
OKE, Eliza, formerly ELCOCK (b 1804)
She was baptised on 25 Mar. 1804 at St. Peter’s, Chertsey, Surrey, the daughter of Benjamin Elcock (1773-1815), yeoman and farmer, and his wife Elizabeth Marianne Stone (1780-1838), who had married at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, London, in 1802. After her father’s death, her mother was declared bankrupt in 1822. Nothing is known of her education or early life. She married Philip Oke, schoolmaster and sometime clerk in office, on 16 June 1829 at St. John’s, Waterloo, south London. They went on to have four daughters at various addresses in central London: Harriet Eliza Elcock (1830), Marianne Greethurst (1832), Emily Parker (1834), and Caroline (1835), all of course surnamed Oke. At least two daughters died in infancy. In Sacred Poems on Various Subjects (1834), Oke relates that the greater part of her poetry had been written “at the early age of fourteen” but “misfortune and necessity” had forced her to publish in order to support “three Children under four years of age, entirely dependent upon the Author’s exertions for their daily bread” (Preface, July 1834). Her religious verse is unremarkable but the volume also contains standard Romantic exercises such as “On the Massacre of the Welsh Bards by Edward I,” “On Reading Ossian,” “On the Death of Robert Bloomfield,” and “Judith. A Sacred Drama.” No trace of her or the family has been found later than 27 Mar. 1836, when her daughter Caroline was baptised at St. Mary’s, Bryanston Square, Westminster. The family was then living at 65 Seymour Place, Marylebone, Westminster, and their absence from later records suggests they may have gone abroad, possibly emigrating to North America or Australia. She does not seem to have gone to live with either of her brothers, William and Benjamin Stone Elcock, who became grocers and tea dealers in Bath in the 1840s. Other possibilities include the early death of her husband and subsequent remarriage but no records of either event have been found. (ancestry.co.uk 29 Dec. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 29 Dec. 2024; Sacred Poems[1834]; London Gazette 4 June 1822) AA
Other Names:
- Mrs. Oke