Mary Eliza Haweis

Mary Eliza Haweis, née Joy (21 February 1848 – 24 November 1898) She also left many printed articles and papers in manuscript on various subjects.

Biography Mary Joy was born in Sloane Street, Chelsea, London, in 1848, the eldest of two daughters born to Thomas Musgrave Joy, and Eliza Rohde Joy, née Spratt. Her mother was a daughter of Charles Spratt, of Salisbury, descended in direct line from Bishop Spratt, also Dean of Westminster, a prominent churchman in the reigns of James II and Anne. As her grandfather was a landed proprietor, her father's family seat was Boughton Hall, Monchelsea, Yalding, Kent. A highly acclaimed painter, Thomas Musgrave Joy was commanded by the Queen to paint the Royal children in 1841. He also did several pictures for Prince Albert and his work was praised by a number of the English nobility, including the Duke of Cambridge. She was baptized on 25 February 1848 at St Saviour's Church, Kensington and Chelsea.

Because as a child, she had a very sweet face, Mary served as a model for many of her father's works. However, she was more than a model; she was also his imitator. Like her father, she had a natural gift for painting. Though she did not receive any formal painting instruction, she regularly watched her father work in his studio. When she was drawing or painting, the only assistance she received was her father's guidance. Occasionally, he would survey her work and add in a few lines here and there. Since, at a very early age, she displayed a wonderful eye for color, her father sent her drawings to an exhibition when she was six or seven. Bought on the private view day, her picture illustrated one of Jean Ingelow's poems. She undertook portrait commissions as well. After her father's death, she completed several of his unfinished orders. Though she excelled in both drawing and painting, she also showed literary promise. Before she could write fluently and elegantly, she practiced copying print in booklets when she was between the ages of seven and ten. They had four children together. Their first-born son, Reginald Joy, died in infancy in 1869, but three further children survived to adulthood: Lionel (b. 1870), Hugolin Olive (b.1873), and Stephen Hugh Wyllyams (b. 1878), who also became a painter.

As Reverend Haweis was a popular preacher, Mary Eliza Haweis accompanied her husband on preaching tours of the continent and North America. Soon her travels abroad became an annual occurrence, enabling her to visit many great art galleries in European countries such as France, Germany, and Italy. In 1885, she and her husband traveled to America, where Reverend Haweis was a lecturer at Boston and a University preacher at Harvard. She is also the first Chaucerian/art historian to link Chaucer's poetry to existing paintings and drawings.

Usually giving her name as Mrs. H. R. Haweis, she first wrote her well-known Chaucer for Children: a Golden Key (1877) which she also illustrated herself, skillfully combining both Haweis' knowledge of art and familiarity with literature. Ostensibly, it was intended to function as a historically accurate description of medieval costume and furniture, illustrated with woodcuts and color plates (i.e.detailed chromo-lithograph drawings) whose details were drawn from medieval manuscripts. In 1881, Sir John Lubbock also included the book in his list of the "Hundred Best Books" to read. Ultimately, she turned a taboo medieval story containing risqué elements into one appropriate for adolescents, managing to include morals and reminders of proper manners. She also radically changed modern views of what the proper Victorian reader's reception should be to a tale; her imagined audience for this tale is assumed by the narrator to be canny and worldly. The literary reception she received for her work in this book was positive. Her readership of the Miller's Tale, composed of male scholars, women, and children, read and laughed at it.

Believing that decoration should be both useful and in harmony with natural proportion, she produced Rus in Urbe: Flowers that Thrive in London Gardens & Smoky Towns (1886) and The Art of Housekeeping: a Bridal Garland (1889), a practical household management guide for newly married women. Because of her father's portrait painting, Haweis retained early memories of the empress, reminiscing, "The Princess Royal was a very sweet-looking child. I remember a rough drawing of her done by my father, T.M. Joy, by for us children – a softened Georgian face in a quaint cap, and the stiff gown of some old German costume, in which Queen Victoria had commissioned him to sketch the child, I think in 1842: the original, of course, is still possessed by Her Majesty."

Her last known publication was the novel A Flame of Fire (1897), written in support of the female suffrage movement and to illustrate the helplessness of women in marriage. In this novel, her heroine Aglae Dorriforth, marries Henry Quekett, "a worthless tyrant" – his subsequent ill-treatment of her roughly dispels the helpless stupor Aglae experienced during their courtship and early marriage and causes her to begin using her own intellectual powers in defense.

Besides advocating for women, Haweis also sympathized with animals; she was part of the anti-vivisection campaign. Her body was cremated at Woking on 26 November, and her ashes interred in the Joy family vault at St. Peter's, Boughton Monchelsea, Kent. Her wealth at death was £2,920 17s.

In honor and memory of Mary Eliza Haweis and her unfailing courage and unwearied efforts to support the rights of women, a fund was established in her name. The "Mrs. Haweis' Fund for Working Girls" strove "to enable English and American girls between the ages of twelve and twenty years to learn a self-supporting trade, or engage in a remunerative occupation, either by paying for their instruction, providing them with board, lodging, or outfits, supplying them with traveling money, or a premium for obtaining employment."

Publications

Chaucer for Children: a Golden Key (1st edn 1877, 2nd edn 1882) The Art of Beauty (1878) The Art of Dress (1879) The Art of Decoration (1881) Chaucer for Schools: With the Story of His Times and Work (1881) Beautiful Houses: Being a Description of Certain Well-Known Artistic Houses (1882) Chaucer's Beads: a Birthday Book, Diary and Concordance of Chaucer's Proverbs or soothsaws (1884) Rus in Urbe: Flowers that Thrive in London Gardens & Smoky Towns (1886) Tales from Chaucer (1887) The Art of Housekeeping: a Bridal Garland (1889) A Flame of Fire: a novel (1897)