Author: Rennie, Eliza
Biography:
RENNIE, Eliza, later WALKER (1799-1869: ancestry.co.uk)
She was born on 11 Oct. 1799 in Southampton Street, Holborn, and baptised 30 May 1800 at St. Pancras Old Church, the daughter of the Rev. John Rennie, Vicar of Long Inchington, Warwickshire, and Ann Prichard, formerly of Caerleon, Monmouthshire. Her elder sister Ann, born 1 Sept. 1796, was baptised with her. Her parents died in 1817 and 1826 and were buried at St. James’s, Hampstead. They lived in the Fitzroy Square area for most of their marriage. She claimed her father was a native of Aberdeen and had been educated at Marischal (Traits 1: 128). Her eldest sister Mary married William Edmund Spencer of Liverpool on 1 Aug. 1827 at St. Pancras Old Church. She herself married Joseph Alexander Walker at St. Pancras Old Church on 30 Apr. 1829. She disclosed to the RLF in 1854 that on her discovery that he was already married, she left him and had never heard of or from him again. She was made three awards 1854-1863 of between £25 and £30. For many years she lived at 3 Gloucester Terrace, Kensington, before finally moving to 5 Ladbroke Crescent, Notting Hill. She received a legacy from her sister Ann who died in Boulogne in 1844. As was often the case, she had fragmented income from various sources: letting of apartments, periodical contributions, and proof-reading. In addition to Poems (1828), she was a prolific contributor to the Annuals (listed in RLF and Boyle) but is now mostly known for her unreliable and attention-seeking portraits of various Victorian luminaries, most notably Mary Shelley, in Traits of Character (2 vols. 1860). She told the RLF in a letter of 30 March 1869 that she had incurable ovarian cancer; she died later that year, 28 June, at 78 Bramley Road, Kensington, “widow of Clergyman Walker,” and was buried at Kensal Green. (ancestry.co.uk 21 Aug. 2020; findmypast.co.uk 21 Aug. 2020; CCEd; RLF 1/1354; Eliza Rennie, Traits of Character [1860]; Northampton Mercury 23 June 1792; Star 20 Aug. 1817; Gore’s Liverpool General Advertiser 16 Aug. 1827; GM Sept. 1844, 334; Boyle) AA