Elizabeth Hope - Biography

Biography

Elizabeth Cotton was born in 1842 in Tasmania, Australia, the daughter of British irrigation engineer, General Sir Arthur Cotton, and spent her childhood in Madras, India, while her father supervised water management and canal projects in Andhra Pradesh. Returning to England on her father's retirement in 1861, the family resided in Hadley Green and came under the influence of the Rev. William Pennefather, a evangelical Anglican clergyman. Cotton also meet many contemporary evangelicals during a three-year stay in Ireland.

In 1869 the family settled in Dorking, Surrey—about 12 miles from Downe, home of Charles Darwin—where Elizabeth began evangelistic and philanthropic work, first organizing a Sunday school and then a "Coffee-Room," where food and non-alcoholic drinks were served. (She advocated total abstinence. ) Cotton held Bible classes and prayer meetings in the hall, and spoke at a Sunday evening service. A contemporary reported that she had "a pleasing, engaging manner and silvery voice, and her message was simple." In 1874-75, Cotton assisted in the evangelistic meetings held by American evangelists Dwight L. Moody and Ira Sankey, counseling women converts.

In 1877, at the age of 35, she married a widower, retired Admiral Sir James Hope, an evangelical and temperance advocate who was 34 years her senior. Cotton therefore became Lady Hope of Carriden. Sir James died four years later.

Thereafter Lady Hope opened several additional coffee houses and settled in London where she became involved in the work of the Golden Bells Mission in Notting Hill Gate. She was a prolific author, writing more than thirty books "which dealt with evangelistic and temperance themes," many containing "personal anecdotes reminiscent of the Darwin story."

In 1893, she married T. A. Denny, an evangelical Irish businessman, 24 years her senior—though she continued to use the name "Lady Hope." She and Denny opened hostels for working men and provided accommodation for soldiers returned from the Boer War. Her father died in 1899, after which she published a biography. After Denny died in 1909, Hope was taken advantage of by an ex-convict whom she befriended and to whom she entrusted her finances. In 1911 she was declared bankrupt.

In 1915, 33 years after Darwin's death and shortly after being diagnosed with breast cancer, Hope told her story about her meeting with Darwin at a Bible conference in Northfield, Massachusetts. In 1922, Hope died in Sydney, Australia, where she is buried.