I lately visited England (my first go to in means too a few years), partly to trace down some residences related to Ernestine Rose, the heroine of my forthcoming novel, The Queen of the Platform. Though Ernestine spent a few years in New York Metropolis, none of her houses there have survived fashionable growth, so it was a deal with to have the ability to have a look at her English residences.
Our first cease is in Bathtub, the place Ernestine and her husband, William Ella Rose, lodged in 1870 and 1871. The Roses lived at 24 Paragon, one among many crescent-shaped streets in that metropolis. As with all of their houses, the couple didn’t occupy your complete constructing, however lived in rented lodgings. Ernestine wrote to her pals on the freethinking Boston Investigator on December 27, 1870, “We’ve two giant rooms, effectively furnished, one story excessive, in one of many principal streets, in a personal home owned by the individuals who reside in it. For the rooms, with fireplace and fuel, and every kind of service, we pay £1 5s. per week, and for that we’ve got our rooms taken care of, and our meals cooked and served in our room, and all we’ve got to do is present no matter we want to have, order tips on how to have it cooked, and when served. Thus we’ve got all the actual consolation of housekeeping with out the difficulty of it, or servants.”
Throughout her keep in Bathtub, Ernestine helped elect two girls to the native faculty board by giving a speech on their behalf.
By the way, the Paragon has associations with two different well-known figures: actress Sarah Siddons, who stayed at 33 Paragon for some time, and Jane Austen, whose rich uncle and aunt, James and Jane Leigh Perrot, lived at 1 Paragon. Austen wrote to her sister Cassandra from 1 Paragon on Might 6, 1801, “I’ve the pleasure of writing from my very own room up two pair of stairs, with every part very snug round me.”
Subsequent is St. Petersburgh Place within the Bayswater neighborhood of London, not removed from Paddington Station. Ernestine, who was widowed in 1882, spent her final years dwelling on this road, though she traveled to Brighton for her well being throughout the summers. Ernestine dated her will from 18 St. Petersburgh Place (the home with the blue door) on January 6, 1890, and the 1891 census has her dwelling subsequent door at 16 St. Petersburgh Place (the home with the yellow door). (On the time of William’s demise in 1882, the Roses had been dwelling at 32 St. Petersburgh Place.) A caller noticed Ernestine at 16 Petersburgh Place on January 13, 1891, Ernestine’s birthday, and wrote, “Mrs. Rose spent her birthday in her drawing-room, sitting in her arm chair wanting very cheerful, her black eyes at occasions glowing with curiosity or enjoyable. She has nonetheless a really recent complexion.”
Lastly, Ernestine died on August 4, 1892, at 39 Marine Parade in Brighton, having suffered a stroke three days earlier than. Her home is the one with out scaffolding. Positioned near the present-day Brighton Palace Pier, it has a wonderful view of the ocean. An atheist, Ernestine had fretted that some spiritual particular person may benefit from her weakened situation in her final sickness to safe a deathbed conversion, however “her final hours handed away peacefully and had been fairly untroubled by any ideas of faith.”
