Author: Reeves, Eliza
Biography:
REEVES, Eliza (b c. 1745, d aft. 1780: ancestry.com)
Apart from her 1780 book of poems, the only certain references to Eliza Reeves are in her mother's will and that of her uncle John Malet (d 1782). In both, “Eliza Reeves” and her sister “Charlotte Bayne” are mentioned. At St Martin Outwich, City of London, in 1772, Charlotte married George Bayne; Captain and Mrs Bayne subscribed to Eliza’s book. Eliza’s sister Amelia was baptized and buried at St Martin Outwich in 1754; her brother James married Mary Merchant there in 1776. Her parents were the writing master William Reeves of London (originally of Hertford) and his wife Elizabeth Malet (d 1774); they married, clandestinely, in London on 22 Dec. 1740. Between 1746 and 1751, five of their children were baptized or were buried at St Dionis, Backchurch, including Charlotte. Little else is known 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 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 relatives 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; Registers of St Martin Outwich [1905]; S. E. Whyman, The Pen and the People [2009]; C. Nichol, Inheriting the Earth [2019]; information from AA) JC