| Jane Ellen Panton | |
| Birth Name: | Jane Ellen Frith |
| Birth Date: | 18 October 1847 |
| Birth Place: | Regent's Park, London, England |
| Death Place: | Bloomsbury, London, England |
| Known For: | Writing |
| Children: | Five |
| Parents: | William Powell Frith (father) |
| Relatives: | Walter Frith (brother) |
| Nationality: | British |
Jane Ellen Panton or Jane Ellen Frith Panton; Jane Ellen Frith (18 October 1847 – 13 May 1923) was an English writer.
Panton was born as Jane Ellen Frith in Regent's Park in 1847. Her father, William Powell Frith was a successful painter and Panton reports that he showed very little interest in his children. After her mother, Isabelle Jane, died in 1880 she found out that her father had a mistress and further children. At this point her father married his former mistress.
Panton appeared as a model in the 1859 painting trilogy Past and Present by Augustus Egg which incidentally deals with a spouse being unfaithful. She also appeared in another two paintings; one by her father and the other by Alfred Elmore. Her father's house would host visits by Charles Dickens and John Ruskin.[1]
She married James Albert Panton[2] at All Saints' Church in Kensington on 10 August 1869. Her husband was a partner in a family brewery business and he was bought out by his brother's widow in 1882. During that period she lived in the Dorset market town of Wareham, which featured in her memoir of 1909, Fresh Leaves And Green Pastures,[3] the domestic print run of which was destroyed in settlement of a libel action brought by local squire Guy Marston, who contested the claim that he had wantonly destroyed records of the Rempstone estate upon his inheritance.[4] The memoir was, however, published in the USA.
The couple briefly lived in Bournemouth before settling in Bromley for four years, where Panton befriended the writer Dinah Craik who lived nearby. During this time they awaited payment for the sale of their share in the brewery, and Panton decided to write to raise money, pitching the idea of articles on home furnishing to the Ladies Pictorial magazine. She showed originality in her articles and in the idea of writing about interior design. In addition, Panton earned substantial sums as an interior design consultant.[3]
Panton's novels were numerous, but "undistinguished". They included Having and Holding. A Story of Country Life, which deals with rural politics in a fictional Southern English county,[5] and The Cannibal Crusader: an Allegory for the Times (1908), in which a noble savage exposes the folly of modern society. An obituary in The Times stated she had 'a vivid and brilliant personality' and was 'a witty and outspoken conversationalist' (21 May 1923).[1]
Jane Ellen Panton died in Bloomsbury in 1923.[1]
James Albert Panton and Jane had five children, three sons and two daughters.[1] One of the sons was the physician Philip Noel Panton (1877–1950).