Some Eminent Women of Our Times: Short Biographical Sketches — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Some Eminent Women of Our Times: Short Biographical Sketches
John Stuart Mill · en
After many years of patient and devoted work she was well known
throughout the whole town and neighbourhood, and was no longer entirely
dependent on her own slender earnings. Her grandmother died in 1826, and
she then inherited a small income of about £12 a year. She removed into
Yarmouth, and hired two rooms in a poor part of the town. Shortly after
this she entirely gave up working as a dressmaker. She could not, of
course, live on the little annuity she inherited from her grandmother;
this was not much more than enough to pay for her rooms. But she did not
fear for herself. Her personal wants were of the simplest description,
and she said herself that she had no care: “God, who had called me into
the vineyard, had said, ‘Whatsoever is right, I will give you.’” It
would, indeed, have been to the discredit of Yarmouth if such a woman
had been suffered to be in want. Many gifts were sent to her, but she
scrupulously devoted everything that reached her to the prisoners,
unless the donor expressly stated that it was not for her charities but
for herself. About 1840, after twenty-one years’ work in the prison and
workhouse of the town, the Corporation of Yarmouth urged her to accept a
small salary from the borough funds. She at first refused, because it
was painful to her that the prisoners should ever regard her in any
other light than as their disinterested friend; she feared that if she
accepted the money of the Corporation she would be looked upon as merely
one of the gaol functionaries, and that they would “rank her with the
turnkeys and others who got their living by the duties which they
discharged.” It was urged upon her that this view was a mistaken one,
and she was advised at least to accept a small salary as an experiment.
She replied, “To try the experiment, which might injure the thing I live
and breathe for, seems like applying a knife to your child’s throat to
know if it will cut. As for my circumstances, I have not a wish
ungratified, and am more than content.” The following year, however, it
was evident that her health was giving way, and another attempt was
made, which ended in the Corporation voting her the small sum of £12 a
year, not as a salary, but as a voluntary gift to one who had been of
such inestimable service to the town. She did not live long after this.
Her health gradually became feebler, but she continued her daily work at
the gaol till 17th April 1843. After that date she never again left her
rooms, and after a few months of intense suffering, she died on the 15th
October. When the nurse who was with her told her the end was near, she
clasped her hands together and exclaimed, “Thank God, thank God.” They
were her last words. She was buried at Caister; the tombstone which
marks her grave bears an inscription dictated by herself, giving simply
her name and the dates of her birth and death, with a reference to the
chapter of Corinthians which forms part of the Church of England Service
for the Burial of the Dead.