Author: Thomas, Elizabeth
Biography:
THOMAS, Elizabeth, formerly Wolferstan (1771-1855: ODNB)
Elizabeth Thomas was primarily a novelist but included poems in her fiction and published two collections in her lifetime. She was born at Berry House, Hartland, Devon, the daughter of Mary (Nicholls) and Edward Wolferstan, and was baptised at Hartland on 7 Oct. 1771. On 25 June 1796 she married the Rev. Thomas Thomas (d 1838) at St. Paul’s, Portland Square, Bristol, Gloucestershire. They lived first at his parish of Newland and then at Tidenham, Gloucestershire, where he became the vicar in 1802. They had at least six children, three of whom were baptised at St. Paul’s in Bristol and three at Tidenham. As “Mrs. Martha Homely” she published her first novel in 1803. Nine others followed, almost one a year between 1808 and 1817, frequently under the pseudonym “Mrs. Bridget Bluemantle,” and more often than not with the Minerva Press. Her first volume of poems met with approval for its piety but otherwise cool reviews: MR called it mediocre. After the death of her husband she moved to Bristol, where she appears in the 1841 census as living with four of her children. In 1847 she issued a final collection of poems, published in Bristol under her own name: The Georgian; or, The Moor of Tripoli, and Other Poems. By 1851 she was part of the household of her son Benjamin at Foxdown, Parkham, Bideford, Devon. There she died of bronchitis on 1 June 1855, aged 84. (ODNB 16 Aug. 2024; Orlando 16 Aug. 2024; findmypast.com 16 Aug. 2024; MR 89 [1819], 432; EN2)