Person record for Elwes, Sarah

Elwes, Sarah

Diary Appearances
Biographical Details
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Acquaintances

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This person is mentioned in the diary a total of 312 times, but was not at home (N) 28 times, and was a venue (V) 143 times.

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Name: Elwes, Sarah
Gender: Female
Birth Date:
Death Date: 26 December 1817

The name Elwes appears in the diary a considerable number of times. Horne Tooke went on a European tour with the son of his old friend John Elwes, MP for Berkshire, a notorious miser, and the subject of a life by E. Topham. However, the entries are predominanently to Mrs Elwes or S Elwes, whom we take to be identical. Gowin also truncates the name to SE from June 1800.

See also the divorce procedings of John Elwes and Mrs Sarah Elwes, who were married in 1789 (very shortly after John Elwes seniors death): A Mr J Egerton and Mr G Harvey were implicated in a case first for criminal conversation (c 1793) resulting in a divorce case in 1796 (July 11). Although Egerton was named in the case, the principal accused was Harvey, whom Mrs Elwes's lawyer alleged was in a conspiracy with her husband to be rid of her. Given that Egerton may be a source of Godwin's contact with Mrs Elwes, in 1799, and that they are together a considerable part of the time, it seems probable that these are the couple involved in this court case. For a summary account, see Morning Chronicle, 13 July 1796. St Clair rightly describes how close Elwes and Godwin's relationship was, esp 1799-1801. His note on p. 542 says that 'Gentleman's Magazine 1817 reports death at age of sixty-two of Sarah, widow of John Elwes of Portman Square'. This seems to have been the son of the renowned miser, John Elwes (1714-1789), a landowner and eccentric, who had two illegitimate sons, George and John. Sarah was the wife of John jr. According to the DNB, John jr, whom Sarah married after her first husband died, was alive until 1817. However, St Clair conjectures that Sarah 'seems to have lived separately at any rate for part of the time'. In fact, it seems highly probably that this was the couple who divorced in 1796. It is striking that Topham's Life of Elwes was advertised heavily thoughout the decade (and features in Dickens' Our Mutual Friend. See also The Times, 12 January 1818 for the sale by auction of S Elwes' effects following her death.

MS. Abinger c. 6, fols. 23-5: 2 Aug. 1800
The Times, 12 January 1818
Morning Chronicle, 13 July 1796
DNB
St Clair; p. 246-7 and p. 542, n.
Mark Philp, 'Improper Levity: Sarah Elwes's Calling' Bodleian Library Record24, 1, April 2011.

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.

Name	Number of Meetings
Godwin, Mary Jane (Clairmont) (née de Vial)	32
Marshall, James	20
Imlay, Fanny (Godwin)	9
Godwin, William	7
Clairmont, Clara Mary Jane (Claire)	4
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (née Godwin)	4
Clairmont, Charles	3
	3
Egerton, Jasper	3
	2
Holcroft, Louisa (née Mercier)	2
Kenney, James	2
Lamb, Charles	2
Godwin, John	1
Hamilton, Samuel	1
Fenwick, John	1
Baxter Family,	1
Fenwick, Elizabeth (Eliza) (née Jaco, pseudonym Reverend David Blair)	1
Curran, John Philpot	1
Kemble, Charles	1
Fell, Ralph	1
Goldsmith, Lewis	1
Macmillan, B	1
Johnson, Joseph	1

Elwes, Sarah

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1818