Emily Hester Melvill

Emily Hester Brodrick (née Melvill; 15 April 1846 – 1906) was an English writer. She published novels as Mrs Alan Brodrick.

Life Brodrick was born at Fort William, Calcutta on 15 April 1846, or 25 April, the eldest daughter of Philip Melvill (1817–1854), eldest son of Sir James Cosmo Melvill, and his wife Emily Jane Hogg, daughter of Charles Hogg. The Melvill family was highly influential in the East India Company. She was baptised on 8 June that year.

After her marriage, she was a vicar's wife in Godalming from 1875, and Alverstoke from 1885 to 1901. In Alverstoke she was involved in setting up allotments on the glebe land. Her husband Alan Brodrick became Master of the Hospital of St Cross, in Winchester, where they moved in 1901.

Death and legacy

Emily Brodrick died in 1906. In 1907 her husband dedicated Brodrick Memorial Hall in Gosport, which he and the parish built, to her memory, and also the restored South Chapel of the Hospital of St Cross. She wrote novels. Her writing involved social themes treated from an Anglican point of view. Reviewed dismissively by H. G. Wells. The setting on the Gosport peninsula included landmarks such as Gilkicker Tower and Haslar Creek. Joscelyn's Pictures, 2nd edition in 1901 reviewed in The Spectator.

Family Emily married the Rev. Hon. Alan Brodrick, son of William Brodrick, 7th Viscount Midleton, on 18 June 1867. The marriage was dissolved in 1901. He then married Diana Peacey. William John Henry Brodrick (1874–1964), a barrister. Dorothea Mary (1889–1953), married Hugh Gildart Worsley.