Jemima Luke

LUKE, Jemima (née Thompson). b. London, 19 August 1813; d. Newport, Isle of Wight, 2 February 1906. She grew up in a pious Congregationalist family: her father, Thomas Thompson, was an active member of the Bible Society, of the London Missionary Society, and the Home Missionary Society. He also proposed a floating chapel for sailors. She later commemorated him in Sketches of the Life and Character of Thomas Thompson (1868). With this upbringing, it is not surprising that she should have contributed to the Juvenile Friend, a religious magazine, when she was 13. She had ambitions to be a missionary herself, but was rejected on the grounds of ill health. She taught in a school at Gray’s Inn...