Miss Gawthrop
(1814-1890)
11 January 1862

Volume 5, page 313, sitting number 6746.

[Identified only as ‘Miss Gawthrop’ in the Silvy daybooks, the sitter was fully identified on a portrait from this sitting which was listed on eBay in March 2022.]

Baptised at St Peter’s in Liverpool on 28 November 1814, Anne [sic] Elizabeth Gawthrop was the daughter of teacher William Gawthrop of Brownlow Street, Liverpool. 

When the census was taken in 1851 she was running a girls’ school at Victoria House in Leamington. The school had 17 pupils. She was still the head of the school when the censuses were taken in 1861 (27 pupils) and in 1871 (29 pupils).

An advertisement in the Acton Gazette (4 February 1888) indicates that by this date she was running a much smaller school at ‘Endsleigh’ in Gunnersbury, an area of West London between Chiswick and Ealing. According to the advertisement, she was ‘assisted by resident English and French Governesses’ and she ‘receive[d] a few pupils (Boarders and Day Boarders) on moderate terms.’

Ann [sic] Elizabeth Gawthrop died, aged 76, on 23 December 1890 at 36 Windsor Road, Ealing, West London. She left an estate valued at £4014.

An obituary appeared the following month in the Leamington Spa Courier (10 January 1891):

‘She had been a resident here for many years, perhaps nearly half-a-century, for she began life — the battle of life — very young, her first pupils being very little younger than herself. […] It may truly be said that no one came under the influence of that refined and gentle and upright nature without being the better for it. Miss Gawthrop came from the North of England, and had the good qualities which North country folk are generally credited with — strong sense and a clear head. She was indefatigable in her work, superintending every detail. She was a great reader, delighting in the best literature, and was an enthusiastic admirer of Wordsworth. But the distinguishing charm of her character was its unselfishness, its simplicity,  its humility, its fragrant goodness, if one may so call it. When Miss Gawthrop, at an advanced age, and with impaired health, gave up the school here, she did not retire to affluence and rest, but went to the neighbourhood of London, and there worked on, though in a smaller sphere, until within a year or two of her death. But she has left to all who knew her the memory of a “sweet soul,” of a life spent in unselfish work, in high endeavour, and in simple trust.’