Letters and Lives of the Tennyson Women

Grateful thanks to Mark Tennyson d'Eyncourt for permission to publish the Tennyson family letters and to Frances Tennyson d'Eyncourt for photographs of family portraits. Despite Covid closures and restrictions, staff at the British Library, Durham County Record Office, Lincolnshire Archives and the National Archives did their best to provide copies, documents, information and photographs. Thank you. Thanks to Garry Crossland and Vivienne Lowe, who provided background information on the Grimsby Haven Company and the Russells of Brancepeth. Marion Shaw's reading of draft chapters was invaluable and is greatly appreciated. Thanks to Susan Donovan Ibrahim and Claire Jones for help and encouragement. Appreciative thanks to Ben Doyle and colleagues at Bloomsbury for bringing the letters and lives of the Tennyson women to a wider public. ## Preface Rosalind Boyce When he retired in the early 1990s, my late husband, Douglas Boyce, an enthusiastic local historian, became aware that in Lincolnshire Archives was a collection of about a thousand letters relating to the forebears of Alfred Tennyson and their families. Douglas spent the next ten years transcribing these letters. He became increasingly involved with the life and times of the Tennyson family and believed that their letters were of sufficient interest to merit publication. After his death in October 2002, I looked through this huge volume of research papers and realized they should not be abandoned. Publication would fulfil Douglas's wish and be a memorial to him. The project was held in abeyance for several years. In 2015, I joined forces with Marion Sherwood who, with her knowledge and experience, was able to guide the project to completion. Thirty years since Douglas first discovered the collection, Letters and Lives of the Tennyson Women has come into being. "Contradicting common perception of them as mere footnotes in Tennyson's career, this book examines the influence of his strong-minded female forebears on the young poet and reveals that the women in Tennyson's family circle were prolific and engaging correspondents. Their letters, preserved in archives in Lincoln and for the most part unpublished, cast a unique light on the Tennyson family's interrelationships and the times in which they lived. Focusing on the letters and lives of four Tennyson women -- the poet's paternal grandmother, Mary Tennyson (1753-1825), her daughters Elizabeth Russell (1776-1865) and Mary Bourne (1777-1864), and her daughter-in-law Frances Tennyson, later Tennyson d'Eyncourt (1787-1878) - this book includes extensive and annotated extracts from the women's letters, linked by narrative passages providing context and continuity. The case studies cover six decades, from the marriage of Mary Turner and George Tennyson in 1775 to the death of George Tennyson in 1835, with brief Afterwords touching on the women's final years."-- Provided by publisher Cover Half Title Title Copyright Contents Figures Timeline Tennyson Family Tree Acknowledgements Preface Introduction: Touching the past (Marion Sherwood) 1 ‘When I receive your letters I feel that inward Joy unspeakable’: Mary Turner Tennyson’s letters to her mother, 1775 to 1804 2 ‘The tenderest and best of Husbands’: Mary Turner Tennyson and George Tennyson, 1775 to 1825 (Rosalind Boyce) 3 ‘Star of the North’: Elizabeth Tennyson Russell, 1776 to 1865 (Marion Sherwood) 4 Mother and sons: Mary Turner Tennyson, George Clayton Tennyson and Charles Tennyson, 1778 to 1825 (Rosalind Boyce) 5 ‘A delicate, pretty girl’: Frances Mary Hutton Tennyson, 1787 to 1878 (Rosalind Boyce) 6 ‘Your truly affectionate Old Aunt Bourne’: Mary Tennyson Bourne, 1777 to 1864 (Marion Sherwood) Conclusion: ‘The noble letters of the dead’ (Marion Sherwood) Bibliography Index