I not too long ago visited England (my first go to in approach 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 take a look at her English residences.
Our first cease is in Tub, 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 the whole constructing, however lived in rented lodgings. Ernestine wrote to her mates on the freethinking Boston Investigator on December 27, 1870, “We now have two giant rooms, properly furnished, one story excessive, in one of many principal streets, in a personal home owned by the individuals who stay in it. For the rooms, with fireplace and fuel, and all types of service, we pay £1 5s. per week, and for that we have now our rooms taken care of, and our meals cooked and served in our room, and all we have now to do is present no matter we want to have, order learn how to have it cooked, and when served. Thus we have now all the true consolation of housekeeping with out the difficulty of it, or servants.”
Throughout her keep in Tub, Ernestine helped elect two ladies 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 the whole lot very comfy 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 residing on this road, though she traveled to Brighton for her well being through 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 residing subsequent door at 16 St. Petersburgh Place (the home with the yellow door). (On the time of William’s demise in 1882, the Roses have been residing 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 contemporary 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. Situated 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 would possibly reap the benefits of her weakened situation in her final sickness to safe a deathbed conversion, however “her final hours handed away peacefully and have been fairly untroubled by any ideas of faith.”
