Charlotte Elliott

ELLIOTT, Charlotte. b. Clapham, south London, 18 March 1789; d. Brighton, 22 Sept 1871. Clapham, then a village south of London, was the centre of the Evangelical ‘Clapham Sect’, and she came of distinguished evangelical lineage. Her mother, Eling Venn, was the eldest daughter of the Reverend Henry Venn, an eminent 18th-century Anglican clergyman. Her uncle, John Venn, was a leading member of the Clapham Sect. Elliott’s father, Charles Elliott, a Bond Street merchant, was also a member of the group. In her youth, she was admired among literary circles for her comic poems, some of which were appended to Thoughts in Verse on Sacred Subjects (1869). In 1821, at the age of 32, she suffered a...