Emilia Tennyson Explained

Emilia Tennyson should not be confused with Emily Tennyson.

Emilia Tennyson (1811–1887), known simply as Emily within her family, was a younger sister of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and the fiancée of Arthur Henry Hallam, for whom Tennyson's poem, In Memoriam A.H.H., was written. Emilia met Hallam through her brother, and they became engaged in 1832.^[1]

Loss and marriage

However, the couple were never to marry, as Hallam died suddenly while travelling abroad in 1833. There was much concern for Emily's well-being on the death of Arthur.

She later married Richard Jesse, then a midshipman in the British Royal Navy, who later rose at least to the rank of captain. Their marriage came as a considerable shock to Jane Elton, Arthur's cousin. Jesse probably died two years after his wife, in 1889.^[2] Their eldest son was given the forenames Arthur Henry Hallam. Another son, the Reverend Eustace Tennyson D'Eyncourt Jesse, was the father of the writer F. Tennyson Jesse.^[3]

Cultural reference

Emilia Tennyson appears as a character in the story "Conjugial [sic] Angel" by A. S. Byatt in the book Angels and Insects.^[4]

Notes and References

1. Christopher Ricks, "Tennyson, Alfred, first Baron Tennyson (1809–1892)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27137. Retrieved 19 December 2005.
2. Web site: Appendix . Complete Letters . ohiostatepress.org . 18 January 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090219133822/http://ohiostatepress.org/books/Complete%20PDFs/Kolb%20Letters/12.pdf . 19 February 2009.
3. You are my heart's delight: Book review of A Portrait of Fryn: A Biography of F. Tennyson Jesse . Susannah Clapp . 7 June 1984 . 10 . London Review of Books . 06 . 28 July 2012.
4. A. S. Byatt, Angels and Insects (London: Chatto, 1992). Retrieved British Library 15 May 2019.