Mrs Coventry Patmore

Born on 29 February 1824 at Walworth in Surrey, Emily Augusta Andrews was the fifth daughter of Reverend Edward Andrews of Camberwell. On 11 September 1847 at the parish church of St John in Hampstead she married the poet Coventry Patmore, who today is best remembered for his poem The Angel in the House, for which Emily was the inspiration. In fact a long narrative poem in four sections, composed over a period of several years, its influence was far-reaching. The poem’s first section idealises the married woman as ‘the Angel in the House,’ a paragon of devotion and virtue who presides over the domestic arena, running the home and raising the children, while her husband goes out into the world to earn a living, returning each evening to the oasis of peace which his wife has created.

Emily’s marriage to Coventry Patmore produced three sons and three daughters before Emily’s early death. When the census was taken in 1861 the family were living at Elm Cottage, North End, Hampstead Heath.

Emily died there, aged 38, on 5 July 1862. She has been battling tuberculosis for several years. She left a written plea for husband to remarry: ‘I leave my wedding ring to your second wife with my love and blessing.’

Coventry converted to Roman Catholicism shortly afterwards. He married again in 1865 and then a third time in 1881. His son Tennyson also crossed the Tiber and his daughter Emily became a nun.

Emily’s portrait by John Everett Millais is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Photographer unidentified.