Bird Grove House | |
---|---|
Alternative names | The George Eliot house |
General information | |
Type | Townhouse |
Address | George Eliot Road, Foleshill |
Town or city | Coventry |
Country | United Kingdom |
Coordinates | 52°25′12″N1°30′19″W / 52.42004°N 1.50526°W Coordinates: 52°25′12″N1°30′19″W / 52.42004°N 1.50526°W |
Technical details | |
Material | Stucco exterior |
Floor count | 2 |
Designations | Grade II* listed |
Known for | Dwelling of Mary Ann Evans 1841 - 1849 |
Bird Grove House, known locally as the George Eliot house, is a two storey stucco house in Foleshill, Coventry. It was occupied by Mary Ann Evans (better known as George Eliot) and her father between 1841 and 1849. [1]
Mary Ann Evans accompanied her father, Robert Evans, to the property in Foleshill when he retired in 1841. [2] She lived there as his housekeeper until his death in 1849, when she moved to London. Her time at Bird Grove House greatly influenced her career, as this is where she became acquainted with the Bray family and the “Rosehill Circle” of intellectuals and radicals. [3] The fictional town of Middlemarch that features in her novel of the same name is based on Coventry. The house was Grade II* listed in 1974 because of its connection to Eliot and some of its period features. [4] In more recent times the building was used as a community education centre, but now stands empty. In 2018 it was identified as being “at risk” by the organisation SAVE Britain’s Heritage. [1]
Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–63), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–72) and Daniel Deronda (1876). Like Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside.
Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by the English author Mary Anne Evans, who wrote as George Eliot. It first appeared in eight installments (volumes) in 1871 and 1872. Set in Middlemarch, a fictional English Midland town, in 1829 to 1832, it follows distinct, intersecting stories with many characters. Issues include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education. Despite comic elements, Middlemarch uses realism to encompass historical events: the 1832 Reform Act, early railways, and the accession of King William IV. It looks at medicine of the time and reactionary views in a settled community facing unwelcome change. Eliot began writing the two pieces that formed the novel in 1869–1870 and completed it in 1871. Initial reviews were mixed, but it is now seen widely as her best work and one of the great English novels.
Nuneaton is a market town in the borough of Nuneaton and Bedworth in northern Warwickshire, England, located adjacent to the county border with Leicestershire to the north-east. Nuneaton's population at the 2021 census was 94,634, an increase from 86,552 at the 2011 census making it the largest town in Warwickshire.
Ethel Kennedy is an American human rights advocate. She is the widow of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a sister-in-law of President John F. Kennedy, and the sixth child of George Skakel and Ann Brannack. Shortly after her husband's 1968 assassination, Kennedy founded the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, a non-profit charity working to reach his goal of a just and peaceful world. In 2014, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
Martha Tabram was an English woman killed in a spate of violent murders in and around the Whitechapel district of East London between 1888 and 1891. She may have been the first victim of the still-unidentified Jack the Ripper.
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Foleshill is a suburb in the north of Coventry in the West Midlands of England. Longford, Courthouse Green and Rowley Green are to its north and Keresley is to its west. The population of the Ward at the 2011 census was 19,943.
Allen Raine was the pseudonym of the Welsh novelist Anne Adalisa Beynon Puddicombe, who was born in Newcastle Emlyn. Her novels had sold more than two million copies by 1912.
Charles Bray was a prosperous British ribbon manufacturer, social reformer, philanthropist, philosopher, and phrenologist.
Serena Evans is a British actress who is best known for playing Police Sergeant Patricia Dawkins in the sitcom The Thin Blue Line which was shown on BBC1 from 1995 to 1996.
Scenes of Clerical Life is George Eliot's first published work of fiction, a collection of three short stories, published in book form; it was the first of her works to be released under her famous pseudonym. The stories were first published in Blackwood's Magazine over the course of the year 1857, initially anonymously, before being released as a two-volume set by Blackwood and Sons in January 1858. The three stories are set during the last twenty years of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century over a fifty-year period. The stories take place in and around the fictional town of Milby in the English Midlands. Each of the Scenes concerns a different Anglican clergyman, but is not necessarily centred upon him. Eliot examines, among other things, the effects of religious reform and the tension between the Established and the Dissenting Churches on the clergymen and their congregations, and draws attention to various social issues, such as poverty, alcoholism and domestic violence.
The White Home in Rock Hill, South Carolina is a historical site & wedding venue. Five generations of the White family lived in the house between 1837 and 2005. Over the years, the home transformed from a one-room cottage into an eighteen-room, two story house. It is located in the Reid Street-North Confederate Avenue Area Historic District.
Chilvers Coton is an area of the town of Nuneaton in Warwickshire, England, around one mile south of the town centre.
Caroline Bray, known as Cara Bray, née Hennell was a British writer of children's stories and school textbooks. With her husband Charles Bray, she was a Freethinker and friend of George Eliot.
Sara Sophia Hennell was a British author. She was a close associate of George Eliot, Charles Christian Hennell and Caroline and Charles Bray.
Griff House is the childhood home of George Eliot, on the road to Coventry, south of Nuneaton, where Eliot lived from the age of 1 to 21.
Alfred Robert Grindlay CBE, JP was an English inventor, industrialist and official during the 19th and 20th centuries. He co-founded Grindlay Peerless, the motorcycle engineering company and was Mayor of Coventry during WWII and the Coventry Blitz.
Mary Franklin (1800–1867) and her sister Rebecca Franklin (1803–1873) were English schoolmistresses in Coventry. Their Nant Glyn school attracted a wide range of students from the UK and abroad. Their students included the ribbon weaver Charles Bray and the novelist George Eliot.
St Laurence's is the Church of England parish church of Foleshill, Coventry. It is a Grade II* listed building with features, including the tower, from the 15th century. It is located on Old Church Road (B4082) to the north-east of Coventry city centre.
Emily Augusta Patmore was a British author, Pre-Raphaelite muse and the inspiration for the 1854-1862 poem The Angel in the House.