Always a "Lady"

 I guess you could say with regards to the person I'm honouring today, that once you become a "Lady", you are always one - even if your husband has died and you've remarried.

ELIZABETH REID COTTON

Elizabeth was born in Tasmania in 1842, the eldest of 3 children to Arthur Thomas Cotton and his wife Elizabeth.

Arthur was a British General and irrigation engineer and came from a military family. He spent a great deal of time in British India constructing canals and entered the Madras engineers in 1818 fighting in the First Burmese war in 1819. Arthur devoted his life to the construction of canals and dams throughout India from 1825. He continued until ill health meant a move to Australia. By 1850 he was back in India with renewed vigour building more ambitious projects until his retirement in 1861 where he was considered one of the most revered people in India. He was knighted that year.

Elizabeth spent most of her childhood in Madras, India and upon the family returning to England in 1861, they came under the influence of the Reverend William Pennefather, an evangelical Anglican clergyman. From this association, Elizabeth met many fellow evangelicals.


Portrait of Elizabeth Reid Cotton - Wikipedia

In 1877, at the age of 35, Elizabeth married a widower, retired Admiral Sir James Hope, an evangelical and temperance proponent who was 34 years her senior. By this marriage Elizabeth became Lady Hope of Carriden. Although there was a large gap in their ages, Sir James came from a naval background with an extensive knowledge of India and was an advocate of evangelism; they would have had much in common. Unfortunately, in 1881, Sir James died.


Admiral Sir James Hope - Wikipedia


"Carriden" - Wikipedia

Lady Elizabeth Hope opened several more coffee shops and settled in London where she became involved in the work of the Golden Bells Mission in Notting Hill Gate. She wrote more than 30 books that dealt with evangelistic and temperance themes including personal remembrances of days gone by. One of those remembrances involved meeting Charles Darwin and discussing her possibility of addressing local people in his summer house about the Bible. Lady Hope "dined' out on this story many times, but the Darwin family have denied the validity of this as Darwin was agnostic. Her books are still in print.

She married Thomas Anthony Denny in 1893, an evangelical Irish businessman, 24 years her senior, although she continued to use the name "Lady Hope". Together they opened hostels for working men and provided accommodation for soldiers returning from the Boer War. Although Denny was not a member of the Salvation Army, he supported it and was one of a number of wealthy benefactors who kept it going in the early years.

In 1903 Lady Hope opened her largest temperance hostel, the Connaught Club in Marble Arch which offered accommodation for several hundred men. She also patented a headband which she called the "Hope Bandeau" designed to secure a woman's hat without the need for a hatpin.

Thomas Denny died in 1909. Lady Hope befriended an ex-convict and after she entrusted her finances to him, was betrayed and declared bankrupt in 1911.

Two years later she went to the United States of America as a delegate to a convention of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union held in Brooklyn. She decided to remain in the States. I suspect the shame of becoming bankrupt in the UK was incredibly upsetting especially after the wealth and prestige she had accumulated with all the evangelistic work she had undertaken.

Lady Hope started to show signs of illness and when it became apparent that her sickness was cancer related, she could no longer continue her ministry. She then settled in Los Angeles and took up painting. She returned to Sydney for medical treatment and died of breast cancer on the 8th of March 1922.

Ever the Lady, Elizabeth continued to use the name "Lady Hope of Carriden" until her death.

The esteemed Lady is buried in Rookwood in the old Anglican area close to Necropolis Drive and near the All Souls Chapel.


Grave of Lady Elizabeth Hope - find-a-grave 

Her headstone states: -

"Lady. Widow of Admiral Sir James Hope. G.C.B and

T. Anthony Denny Esq. London. b. Tasmania

December 1842. Died Sydney 8th March 1922"


Headstone - closer view - find-a-grave 

Became a Lady and died a Lady.

References utilised for this blog today are ancestry.com; Wikipedia and find-a grave as well as other google searches. A big thank you to Noelene from Australian Headstone Images who brought this headstone to my attention a few months back. 

If you have anything to add to this blog today or have any comments, please add them below or go to the group Facebook page found under

Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries

or send me a personal message via

lorainepunch@gmail.com

Until next time

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