Elizabeth Simcoe

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Elizabeth Simcoe
Aldwincle, Northamptonshire
Died17 January 1850(1850-01-17) (aged 87)
Honiton, Devon
Spouse
John Graves Simcoe
​
​
(m. 1782; died 1806)​
Children11

Dame Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe (22 September 1762 – 17 January 1850) was an English

Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada
. Her diary gives an account of Canadian life.

Biography

She was born Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim to

Hembury Fort near Honiton in Devon. Gwillim was one of a group of friends that included Mary Anne Burges in Honiton.[2]

A 1793 watercolour painting by Simcoe of York Harbour before settlement. York would become the city of Toronto

On 30 December 1782, Elizabeth married

Castle Frank. Nine survived to adulthood; Katherine, their only child to be born in Upper Canada, and John Cornwall Simcoe died in infancy. Katherine is buried at Fort York
Garrison.

Elizabeth was a wealthy heiress, who acquired a 5,000-acre (2025 ha) estate near Honiton, Devon, and built Wolford Lodge, which remained the Simcoe family seat until 1923.[3] She is buried at Wolford Chapel.

Legacy

Pages 6 and 7 of Elizabeth Simcoe's diary. Page 6 is a textual entry into her diary and page 7 a drawing of trees and two small buildings.
Pages 6-7 of Elizabeth Simcoe's diary created between 1795 and 1796 from the Simcoe Family Fonds at the Archives of Ontario
A cascade surrounded by trees.
A watercolour painting by Elizabeth Simcoe created in [April 1792?] depicting a cascade in Wolfe’s Cove from the Simcoe Family Fonds

Elizabeth Simcoe's diary provides a valuable impression of life in colonial Ontario. First published in 1911, there was a subsequent transcription published in 1965 and a paperback version at the turn of the 21st century, over 200 years after she wrote it. She also left a series of 595

Whitchurch–Stouffville, Ontario, honours her ancestral home, Whitchurch, Herefordshire.[4]

In December 2007, a statue of Elizabeth Gwillim Simcoe was raised in the town of Bradford West Gwillimbury, when it commemorated the 150th anniversary of its incorporation. The statue stands in a small park in front of the Bradford post office, at the corner of John Street West and Barrie Street.

A watercolour painting that includes a body of water with a boat on it, barracks, and trees.
[Ca. 1792] watercolour painting by Elizabeth Simcoe depicting the barracks at Queenston from the Simcoe Family Fonds

References

  1. ^ Baptism record on FreeReg. The exact date of her birth remains unknown. Her mother's burial took place one day later at the same church.
  2. ^ The Progress of the Pilgrim Good-Intent, in Jacobinical Times, Mary Ann Burges, AbeBooks. Retrieved 2 August 2014.
  3. ^ Dictionary of Canadian Biography SIMCOE, JOHN GRAVES
  4. ^ Jean Barkey, et al., Whitchurch Township[permanent dead link] (Toronto: Stoddart, 1993), p. 14.
  • Firth, Edith G. (1988). "Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim".
    ISBN 0-8020-3452-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  • Bassett, John M. (1974). The Canadians: Elizabeth Simcoe, First Lady of Upper Canada. Don Mills: Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd.
    ISBN 0-88902-204-6
    .
  • Frayer, Mary Beacock (1989). Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe, 1796–1850: A Biography. Toronto: Duncan Press.
  • Innis, Mary Quayle (1965). Mrs. Simcoe's Diary. New York: St. Martin's Press.
  • Robertson, J. Ross (1934). The Diary of Elizabeth Simcoe. Toronto: The Ontario Publishing Company Limited.
  • Travels With Elizabeth Simcoe. Archives of Ontario.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Elizabeth Simcoe.
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