Eliza Rennie - Later Life

Later Life

Her father married in 1829, and the household moved to the country in 1834. Her father died in 1838 in a fall from a horse, leaving a widow and at least two young children. Eliza herself most likely married around 1830, as from the early 1830s Eliza published under the name Mrs Eliza Walker. The first known record of her using this name is in 1831, in The Gem, A Literary Annual, Pages 173 - 189, a short story entitled "The Confessional; or, The Two Brothers. A Tale founded on Fact". Mr Walker is never mentioned in her own narratives, the marriage may have ended prematurely or have been a sham. She herself claimed in applications for financial assistance that the marriage was bigamous, and that her fortune was embezzled by "her brother". The Royal Literary Fund archive, record stored in the British Library refers to her making four applications for relief, dated: 28 Jun 1854 (£30), 25 Jan 1861 (rejected), 30 Mar 1863 (£25), and 30 Mar 1869 (£25) Eliza Walker : Royal Literary Society

Nothing else is known about her later private or professional life apart from her own - rare - autobiographical insights in Traits of Character. She describes a life in London/Scottish society with excursions to spa towns and meetings with celebrities and her publishers. She produced a steady string of short stories for the periodicals of the day, and also writes about receiving a small legacy, possibly from her father's estate or from one of her wealthy admirers. She also writes about her inordinate fondness for her pet terrier, which was dognapped on two occasions for ransom, (apparently a popular crime in London in the mid-19th Century).

Her place and date of death are unknown, and further research is needed.

Mary Shelley refers to her just once in her own correspondence: See: Newly Uncovered Letters and Poems by Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley: Betty T Bennett, Keats-Shelley Journal Vol 46, (1997) pp 51-74