Author: Reeves, Eliza
Biography:
REEVES, Eliza (b c. 1745, d aft. 1780: ancestry.com)
Outside her 1780 book of poems, the only certain reference to Eliza Reeves is in the will of her uncle John Malet of Hertford (d 1782). He identifies her as “Eliza Reeves” and mentions her sister, “Charlotte Bayne.” At St Martin Outwich, City of London, in 1772, Charlotte Reeves married George Bayne; Captain and Mrs Bayne subscribed to Eliza’s book. Eliza and Charlotte’s parents were William Reeves of London (originally of Hertford), and his wife, Elizabeth Malet; they married, clandestinely, in London on 8 Dec. 1740. Eliza’s sister, Amelia, was baptized at St Martin Outwich in 1754; in 1776, also at St Martin Outwich, her brother, James, married Mary Merchant. Nothing else is known specifically about Eliza and her immediate family. Much, however, can be gleaned from the 150 or so names in her fascinating subscription list. Socially, she was very well connected. The list includes four earls and their countesses and six members of the royal household. Among them are George III’s page of honour the Earl of Effingham; the king’s chaplain Lewis Bruce; the royal physician Thomas Gisborne; the comptroller of the household, Earl Ludlow; and two gentleman ushers, Savile Dobyns and Vere Warner. The Duke of Manchester, to whom she dedicated her book, subscribed for ten copies, as did his duchess. Several of her relations subscribed, including members of the Montagu, Todd, Long, and Phipps families. One of these, Anthony Todd, was the powerful Secretary of the General Post Office. His superior, George Villiers, was a subscriber, as were Todd’s nephews (also his colleagues) Michael Colling and John Maddison. Another subscriber, the political reformer Thomas Hinton Burley Oldfield, served in the same militia regiment as former Postmaster General Francis Dashwood. Dashwood’s son James (another subscriber) was Anthony Todd’s protégé. Indicative of the closeness of her relationship to her subscribers, three quarters of them appear to have subscribed to no other book than hers; a large number purchased multiple copies; and her list includes almost three dozen couples. When she died is unknown. (ancestry.com 9 Jan. 2024; S. E. Whyman, The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1600-1800 [2009], chap. 2; C. Nichol, Inheriting the Earth: The Long Family’s 500 Year Reign in Wiltshire [2019]) JC