Deborah Alcock Explained

Deborah Alcock
Birth Name:Deborah Alcock
Birth Date:1835
Birth Place:Kilkenny
Death Date:15 January 1913
Known For:"The Spanish Brothers" (1870)
Occupation:author
Years Active:1857-1908
Parents:Venerable John Alcock, Jane

Deborah Alcock (1835[1] – 15 January 1913) was a late-Victorian author of historical fiction focused on religious, evangelical themes.[2]

Life

She was born in Kilkenny, where her father, the Venerable John Alcock, who became Archdeacon of Waterford, and his wife Jane.[3] In the 1851 Isle of Man Census, the fifteen-year-old Deborah is recorded as living on the Isle of Man with her parents, aunt Sally McKenny, cousins nineteen-year-old Deborah Barllie and thirteen-year-old Barbara Gose, and two servants.[4]

Reflecting on her childhood, Alcock described having read narratives of saintly children who died young as well as stories detailing missionary outreach to unconverted heathen. However, her father discouraged fiction reading, banning the works by the likes of Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Mary Yonge, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, or George McDonald. However, she was allowed to read novels by Sir Walter Scott, which shaped the theme and style of her writing as she grew older.

In adulthood, she lived with her father, writing a memoir of him on his death entitled Walking with God: A Memoir of the Venerable John Alcock (Hodder & Houghton, 1898), and stayed unmarried herself. In the 1891 England Census, she and a Caroline G. Cavendish listed as currently visiting an Irish friend from Cork, Martha A. Lloyd at 143 Clapham Road, Lambeth, London.[5] In the England Census for 1901, she and her widowed cousin Mary Smith are located at Bournemouth, Dorset.[6] In 1900, The Sunday at Home, a periodical published by the Religious Tract Society, interviewed Alcock at her home in Bournemouth, revealing her frequent bouts of illness and constant excitement about writing.[7]

By 1911 Alcock had removed to Sussex.[8] She lived for a while in St Leonards with the novelist Elizabeth Boyd Bayly.[9] She died at her home 1 Bohemia Road, Hastings, St. Leonards-on-Sea and left £9,726 16 s. in her will.[10] In 1914 Elizabeth Boyd Bayly published her biography.[11]

Career

Her tale of Protestant martyrdom, The Spanish Brothers, published in 1870, was set in the 16th century. Other work includes The Czar (1882), set during the French invasion of Russia; Archie’s Chances (1886), and Prisoners of Hope (1894).

Themes

Her books contain episodes from the history of the Protestant church written in the form of a story. Several of these stories have been translated into Dutch, German, and French.[12]

Reception and legacy

According to Benjamin B. Warfield, writing for the Princeton Theological Review, Alcock penned powerful stories but failed to make certain of her figures like John Calvin "Christian" and "forceful" enough. Besides this yearning for more muscular Christianity in Alcock's tales, Warfield does admit, "Deborah Alcock has long been known as the author of a series of admirable stories, the scenes of which are cast in stirring periods of religious history, and the religious tone of which is not only sane and true, but especially moving. The best of them is probably The Spanish Brothers, the scene of which is cast in Reformation Spain: it has been translated into most of the European languages and has had a wide influence for good."[13]

In the 20th and 21st centuries, Christian publishers such as Moody Publishers, Inheritance Publications, and Bible Truth have reissued her titles.

Books

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://www.telusplanet.net/public/inhpubl/webip/Alcock01.htm
  2. Book: Murphy, James H.. The Oxford History of the Irish Book, Volume IV: The Irish Book in English, 1800-1891. September 2011. OUP Oxford. 9780198187318.
  3. Class: HO107; Piece: 2525; Folio: 127; Page: 40; GSU roll: 105992-105996. Ancestry.com. 1851 Isle of Man Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.
  4. Class: HO107; Piece: 2525; Folio: 127; Page: 40; GSU roll: 105992-105996. Ancestry.com. 1851 Isle of Man Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Census Returns of England and Wales, 1851. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1851. Data imaged from the National Archives, London, England.
  5. The National Archives of the UK (TNA); Kew, Surrey, England; Class: RG12; Piece: 404; Folio: 90; Page: 4. Ancestry.com. 1891 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1891.
  6. Class: RG13; Piece: 1040; Folio: 73; Page: 6. Ancestry.com. 1901 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives, 1901. Data imaged from the National Archives, London, England.
  7. Book: The Sunday at Home. 1900. Religious Tract Society. 562. en.
  8. Class: RG14; Piece: 4764; Schedule Number: 239. Ancestry.com. 1911 England Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA), 1911.
  9. Cale . Michelle . Elizabeth Boyd Bayly in Bayly [née Saunders], Mary (1816–1899), temperance activist and writer ]. 2004-09-23 . 2023-05-19 . en . 10.1093/ref:odnb/50730 . 978-0-19-861412-8.
  10. Ancestry.com. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995[database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Principal Probate Registry. Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England.
  11. Web site: Deborah Alcock . 2023-05-19 . www.inhpubl.net.
  12. Web site: Deborah Alcock - Exodus Books. www.exodusbooks.com. 2019-02-20.
  13. Book: The Princeton Theological Review. deborah alcock.. 1903. Princeton University Press. 510–511. en.

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