Author: Sargeant, Emma Louisa
Biography:
SARGEANT, Emma Louisa, later HARTWELL (1813-35: ancestry.co.uk)
She was born in Bristol, the daughter of Joseph Sargeant and his wife Ann Townsend. She was baptised at Broad Street (Independent), Reading, on 1 Jan. 1830, alongside her sister Anna Maria Sargeant (q.v.). She married Robert John Hartwell (1810-75), a compositor, on 19 June 1833. She may have met him through Bristol connections (he was also born there) or through political networks. She published Co-operation. A Poem (1832), sympathetic to the labour movement, while he supported the Tolpuddle Martyrs and was Treasurer of the Fund for the Relief of Dorchester Labourers. After her death, he joined the Working Men’s Association, edited The Charter newspaper and much later helped to establish and was the main contributor to The Bee-Hive (1863-70), which supported Trade Unionism. Prior to her marriage, she published a poem, "Stanzas," in The Ladies’ Pocket Magazine (1833). Under her married name, she wrote briefly for Leigh Hunt’s London Journal. She died following the birth of a daughter, Emma Augusta, born on 22 March 1835, and was buried on 5 April at St. James’s, Piccadilly. Her daughter survived and Robert Hartwell went on to re-marry twice. (ancestry.co.uk 12 Oct. 2020) AA