Mariquita Tennant

Mariquita Dorotea Francesca Tennant born Mariquita Dorotea Francesca Eroles (1 November 1811 – 21 February 1860) was a Spanish-born social reformer. She opened her house and started to help abused women around Windsor in England.

Life Tennant was born in Barcelona in 1811. She was the eldest daughter of Don Antonio Eroles

Back in London, with the assistance of William Gladstone, she published a book of her late husband's sermons.

She went to live in a large 16th-century mansion, 'The Limes', in Clewer near Windsor. At the end of 1848, she took in an abused woman, Marianne George, who had four children fathered by her step father. Encouraged by the Rector Thomas Thellusson Carter, she offered to take in more 'helpless women'. By the following June she had two more and soon there was twelve. These women could be unruly so Tennant took in various offers of help. However she could be a difficult person and none of her helpers stayed very long, although Charlotte Julia Weale stayed there for six months. Weale returned to her home in Dorset, but she continued to support the work by employing women from 'The Limes' as servants at Whitchurch Canonicorum.

Beginning in 1854, she lived in a Windsor flat and there was a pickup office near pubs.

She maintained contact with her sister Rosa and her six children living in Edgeworthstown, Ireland, and in the summer of 1858 she attended a tribute party to William Edgeworth, organised by Edgeworthstown tenants after being wounded in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Death and legacy

In February 1860 Tennant died in Clewer and she was buried in the St Mary's Church graveyard. Her social work in Clewer was continued by the Community of St John Baptist, the 'Clewer Sisters'.

On 21 November 2005 the mayor of Windsor and Maidenhead placed on The Limes a blue plaque in her honour which reads: 'Marquita Tennant lived here and started her work to help the poor women of Windsor'.