Eliza Brightwen

She was born in 1830 in Banff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland; her parents were Margaret and George Elder, and she had three other siblings. Her mother died in 1837 and her father was by then also dead.[1][2] She was adopted, after her mother died, by her uncle, Alexander Elder, co-founder of Smith, Elder & Co.[1]

Elder moved to Streatham to live with her uncle, and then to Stoke Newington. She did not receive a formal education.[1] She expressed interest in natural history as a child and described her youth as "extremely lonely and quiet".[3] In 1855 she married George Brightwen, a banker who then ran a successful business of his own. The couple moved to Stanmore and lived in a house called Elderslie, in Bushey, Hertfordshire.[1][4]

Brightwen suffered from health problems, and had a nervous breakdown in 1872. She lived as a recluse for 10 years, with little to no contact with her husband and friends. She rarely left the house and did not read. When George Brightwen died in 1883 she emerged from reclusiveness, to be active intellectually and physically, but continued to suffer from body pains for the rest of her life. She still rarely left The Grove.[1]

Brightwen lived in Stanmore until she died in May 1906. The house, The Grove, was an estate with 170 acres of grounds where she carried out much of her research.[1][4] The couple renovated the house, to a design carried out by Brightwen Binyon. She made the billiard room into a museum after her husband's death.[5]

Eliza Brightwen was a philanthropist and attended church regularly. She died childless, and is buried at a church in Stanmore.[1]

Brightwen did much of her research on location in the woods and grounds of her home, The Grove. She started writing about her work when she was sixty. In 1890, she published Wild Nature Won by Kindness, about animal life. She became well known as a naturalist. In 1892, she published her second book, More about Wild Nature, followed by Inmates of my House and Garden, in 1895. It is considered her master work. She published a total of six publications during her lifetime. She socialized with Philip Henry Gosse (whose second wife, also named Eliza Brightwen, was her husband's sister), William Henry Flower, William Hooker, and James Paget.[1] She also wrote about the concept of "home museums," as written in More about Wild Nature. The concept of home museums stems from her own home museum at The Grove.[5]

On her death, a collection of essays were published titled Last Hours with Nature. An autobiography was also published, with an epilogue by her nephew Edmund Gosse.[1]

• Brightwen, Eliza. Wild Nature Won by Kindness. (1890)
• Brightwen, Eliza. More about Wild Nature. (1892) ISBN 1164177125
• Brightwen, Eliza. Inmates of my House and Garden. (1895) ISBN 0559909659
• Brightwen, Eliza. Glimpses into Plant Life. (1898) ISBN 1149384018
• Brightwen, Eliza. Rambles with Nature Students. (1899)
• Brightwen, Eliza. Quiet Hours with Nature. (1903)
• Brightwen, Eliza. The Life and Thoughts of a Naturalist (autobiographical writings, journal, etc. introduced by Edmund Gosse, edited by W. Chesson, 1909)[6]
• Eliza Brightwen. Eliza Brightwen, naturalist & philanthropist ; an autobiography. Edited by W. H. Chesson, with introduction and epilogue by Edmond Gosse. New York: American Tract Society. (1909)

• Works by Eliza Brightwen at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Eliza Brightwen at Internet Archive
• Works by Eliza Brightwen at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)