Esther Copley

Esther Copley (born Esther Beuzeville on 10 May 1786 in London, died on 17 July 1851 in Eythorne, Kent) was an English religious tractarian and children's writer.

Life

Copley was the youngest daughter of a silk manufacturer, Peter Beuzeville (1741–1812), and his wife, Mary Griffith Meredith (1744–1811), who were of Huguenot origin. She married, in 1809, the Oxford cleric James Philip Hewlett (1779/80-1820), who was curate of St. Aldate's and chaplain of the Oxford University colleges of Magdalen and New College. They had two sons, who also become Anglican clerics, and two daughters who married two brothers: Esther Beuzeville Hewlett married Ebenezer Sargent and Emma Hewlett married George Eliel Sargent. As a widow, Esther married in 1827 William Copley (1796–1857), a Baptist minister in Oxford, whose chapel she had joined. They moved later to St. Helier, Jersey, then to Eythorne, Kent, but they separated in 1843, perhaps due to Copley's alcoholism, which had already involved her in writing his sermons for him. Esther is buried in the Eythorne Baptist churchyard.

Writings

Esther was a prolific author of children's books, tracts, and books on domestic economy. Cottage Comforts (1825), addressed to the working people, went into scores of editions, for example. Among several other works on domestic matters was the pamphlet Hints on the Cholera morbus (1832), on how to prevent and treat the disease.

Copley's stories for children were mainly didactic, designed to make them thrifty and good by providing examples of moral behaviour. She also wrote longer, non-fiction works for children, including Scripture Natural History for Youth (1828) and a 500-page History of Slavery and its Abolition (1836).

Commemoration

Esther Copley was buried at Eythorne Baptist Church under a tree near the gate, but in 1996, a plaque to her and her extended family was erected in the United Reformed church, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, where she and her parents had moved in the early years of the nineteenth century.

Sources

• Rosemary Mitchell, "Copley , Esther (1786–1851)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. (Oxford: OUP, 2004). [1]. Subscription required, accessed 8 May 2010. This cites Lewis, D. M., ed., The Blackwell Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, 1730–1860, (Oxford, 1995), "Biographical sketch of Mrs Copley". In: Copley, E.: The Complete Cottage Cookery. 11th edn (London: William Wesley, 1859), pp. v–x, and Baptist sources.