Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna

Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna (1 October 1790 – 12 July 1846) was a popular Victorian English writer and novelist who wrote under the pseudonym Charlotte Elizabeth. She was "a woman of strong mind, powerful feeling, and of no inconsiderable share of tact." As Isabella A. Owen remarked in 1901, "She was above all else an anti-Romanist, a most protesting Protestant."

Life Tonna was born on 1 October 1790, the daughter of Reverend Michael Browne, rector of St. Giles' Church and minor canon of Norwich Cathedral, who contributed greatly to the development of Tonna's strong faith and devotion to God, the consequence of being raised in a "Tory, royalist, Church-of-England family". Her mother Charlotte was the daughter of local physician Dr. John Murray.

She was baptised on 22 October 1790 at St. Martin-at-Palace Church in her hometown of Norwich.

In her early youth, she "displayed a very ardent temperament and lively imagination." She was so eager to learn that she accepted an offer from her uncle to teach her the French language before she was six years old. During this time of learning, she strained her eyes so hard "that she was deprived of sight for some months." They then returned to Ireland, where Phelan owned a small estate near Kilkenny. The marriage was not a happy one, and it was reported that Captain Phelan was addicted to "gross intemperance" and personally abused Charlotte during their marriage. She was very patient towards him and refused to seek help from her friends, but as the abuse continued she was forced to separate from him in 1824. After the death of her brother, "she undertook the sole charge of the education and maintenance of his two sons."

As a woman active in public service, Tonna "began a Sunday school in her cottage, did charity work in the Irish ghetto in London, and established a Protestant Church in St. Giles in the early 1830s"

Writing on social causes Her drive for social change was prominent in The Wrongs of Woman, wherein she wrote about the poor working conditions of female workers in London. The story focused on Kate Clark, a newly hired lace runners apprentice, who faced great work obstacles such as "long hours, poor pay and lack of food" which was common amongst labour workers in London. Published in four volumes between 1843 and 1844, the book adequately described the sickly and dirty lifestyle London workers endured during the Victorian era. Another popular work by Tonna was Helen Fleetwood: A Tale of the Factories which told the story of cotton mill child labour workers, which was serialised between 1839 and March 1841 in The Christian Lady's Magazine. Her concern for the social and economic conditions of women expressed in her writing helped gather support for passage of the London Factory Acts of 1844, 1847, and 1848.

People praised her ability to creatively instruct children in her children's stories as she frequently used, "nature in religious analogies in both her prose and poems" to help children learn how to live.

Works

Principalities and Powers in Heavenly Places (New York, 1842) Zadoc, the Outcast of Israel (London, 1825) Perseverance: a Tale (London, 1826) Rachel: a Tale (London, 1826) Consistency: a Tale (London, 1826) Osric: a Missionary Tale, and other Poems (Dublin, 1826?) Izram: a Mexican Tale, and other Poems (London, 1826) The System: a Tale of the West Indies (London, 1827) The Rockite: an Irish Story (London, 1829) The Museum (Dublin, 1832) The Mole (Dublin, 1835) Alice Benden, or the Bowed Shilling (London, 1838) Letters from Ireland, 1837 (London, 1838) Derriana (1833) Derry (1833; 10th ed. 1847) Chapters on Flowers (London, 1836) Conformity: a Tale (London, 1841) Helen Fleetwood (London, 1841) Falsehood and Truth (Liverpool, 1841) Personal Recollections (London, 1841) Dangers and Duties (London, 1841) Judah's Lion (London, 1843) The Wrongs of Woman, in four parts (London, 1843–4) The Church Visible in all Ages (London, 1844) Judea Capta: an Historical Sketch of the Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (London, 1845) Works of Charlotte Elizabeth (with introduction by Mrs. H. B. Stowe, 2nd edit. New York, 1845) Protection; or, the Candle and the Dog (Lane & Tippett, 1846) Bible Characteristics (London, 1851) War with the Saints (London, 1852) Short Stories for Children (Dublin, 1854) Tales and Illustrations (Dublin, 1854) Stories from the Bible (London, 1861) Charlotte Elizabeth's Stories (collected, New York, 1868) Kindness to Animals: or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked (Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, 1845) (available online) Little Oaths (New York: American Tract Society, 18--?)(available online) Patty; or, Beware of Meddling (Sunday-School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 18--?)(available online) Richard and Rover (New York: Lane & Tippett for the Sunday-School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1846)(available online) The Bible The Best Book (New York: American Tract Society, 185-?)(available online) The Burying-ground (N.Y. American Tract Society, 185-?) The Newfoundland fisherman: a true story (N.Y. American Tract Society, 18--?) Personal Recollections (London: R. B. Seeley & W. Burnside, 1841) The Perils of the Nation: An Appeal to the Legislature, The Clergy, and the Higher and Middle Classes (London: Seeley, Burnside and Seeley, 1843)