Rose Aylmer
| Rose Aylmer | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 15, 1779 Meath, Ireland |
| 💀Died | March 2, 1800 Calcutta, British IndiaMarch 2, 1800 |
| Burial place | South Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta |
| 💼 Occupation | |
Rose Whitworth Aylmer (15 October 1779 – 2 March 1800)[1] was a young woman from Wales, who is renowned for the poem dedicated to her memory by poet Walter Savage Landor entitled Rose Aylmer. This poem was later inscribed on her tomb in Calcutta, India.
Early life and background
Rose Aylmer was the only daughter of Henry Aylmer, 4th Baron Aylmer, and his wife Catherine Whitworth, who was sister to Lord Whitworth. After the passing of her husband in 1785, Lady Aylmer moved to Wales, with her children, where Rose later met poet Walter Savage Landor. In 1798, after Lady Aylmer married a second time, Rose was sent to live with her aunt Lady Russell (Anne Barbara Whitworth), wife of Sir Henry Russell, in Calcutta.[2][3][4]
Relationship with Landor
The relationship between Walter Savage Landor and Rose Aylmer started when, following his short and tumultuous time at Oxford, the young poet took retirement on the Welsh coast, and got acquainted with Matthew Whitworth-Aylmer, 5th Baron Aylmer and his family.[5] Rose lent him The Progress of Romance by the Gothic author Clara Reeve, which contained the story The History of Charoba, Queen of Egypt, that inspired his poem Gebir.[4][6] Even though it has been alluded that they were in love,[7][8][9] in 1853, in a letter to Rose's half-sister Sophia Paynter, Landor writes,[10]
"I am quite certain I never wrote any of an amatory turn, nor ever offered a word of love to your lovely sister."
In 1863, in a letter to his niece Catherine Mary Landor, he describes their relationship as,[11]
"I was not indifferent to Rose, nor Rose quite to me."
Several of Landor's poems make subtle reference to her, written many years after their time together.
When the buds began to burst,
Long ago, with Rose the First
I was walking; joyous then
Far above all other men,
Till before us up there stood
Britonferry's oaken wood,
Whispering, "Happy as thou art,
Happiness and thou must part."— Walter Savage Landor, The Three Roses
After Rose's departure and death, Landor writes,
Where is she now ? Called far away
By one she dared not disobey,
To those proud halls for youth unfit,
Where princes stand and judges sit,
Where Ganges rolls his widest wave
She dropped her blossom in the grave;
Her noble name she never changed
Nor was her nobler heart estranged.— Walter Savage Landor, Abertawy
Landor's verses suggest that Rose was sent to India against her will, although no other evidence has been found supporting that theory.[2][10][12]
Death and legacy
Rose passed away from cholera on March 2, 1800, in Calcutta.[10][13] At that time, it was widely believed that consuming too much fresh fruit could lead to cholera, and Rose's death was attributed to excessive consumption of pineapples.[14][15] Her death was announced in the Calcutta Gazette in the following terms:[3]
"On Sunday last, at the house of her uncle, Sir Henry Russell, in the bloom of youth, and possession of every accomplishment that could gladden and embellish life, deplored by her relatives and regretted by a society of which she was the brightest ornament, the Honourable Miss Aylmer."
She was buried at the South Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta. Her tomb carries a spirally carved obelisk, which bears the following inscription.[4][16]
To the memory ofthe Honorable
ROSE WHITWORTH AYLMER
who departed this life March 2d A. D. 1800,
Aged 20 years.What was her fate? Long, long before her hour,
Death called her tender foul, by break of bliss,
From the first blossoms, to the buds of joy;
Those few our noxious fate unblasted leaves
In this inclement clime of human life.
Following her death, Landor penned an elegy in her honor, which was later inscribed on her tomb.
Ah! what avails the sceptred race,
Ah! what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.— Walter Savage Landor, Rose Aylmer
Her tomb is considered to be one of the most notable among the graves at the South Park Street Cemetery,[7][9][17] and has gained cultural and historical significance as a representation of early colonial era history in India.[18]
References
- ↑ "Rose Whitworth Aylmer 1779-1800 - Ancestry®". www.ancestry.com. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Hunter William (1897). The Thackerays In India (1897). Oxford University, London. Search this book on
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Blechynden, Kathleen (1905). Calcutta, past and present. London : Thacker. Search this book on
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Busteed, H. E. (1908). Echoes from old Calcutta : being chiefly reminiscences of the days of Warren Hastings, Francis, and Impey. London : Thacker. Search this book on
- ↑ Firminger, Walter K. (Walter Kelly) (1906). Thacker's guide to Calcutta. Calcutta : Thacker, Spink & Co. Search this book on
- ↑ "Landor, Walter Savage", Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, 32, retrieved 2023-02-06
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Ghosh, Deepanjan (2020-01-24). "South Park Street Cemetery: The Dead Still Tell Tales". PeepulTree. Retrieved 2023-02-08.
- ↑ Ghosh, Bishwanath (2020-01-18). "Here lies buried a love story that enriched English literature". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2023-02-08.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Gupta, Prosenjit Das (2000). 10 walks in Calcutta. New Delhi : HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 978-81-7223-383-9. Search this book on
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Landor, Walter Savage; Wheeler, Stephen (1897). Letters and other unpublished writings of Walter Savage Landor. London R. Bentley. Search this book on Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name ":2" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ Calcutta Historical Society (1907). Bengal, Past & Present: Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society. Calcutta Historical Society. Search this book on
- ↑ Hurst, J. F. (John Fletcher) (1891-02-01). "English writers in India". Harper's Magazine. February 1891. ISSN 0017-751X Check
|issn=value (help). Retrieved 2023-02-08. - ↑ Buckland, Charles Edward, "Aylmer, Hon. Rose Whitworth", Dictionary of Indian Biography, retrieved 2023-02-08
- ↑ Kincaid, Dennis (1973). British Social Life in India, 1608-1937. Routledge & K. Paul. ISBN 978-0-7100-7284-9. Search this book on
- ↑ "Expired from eating too many pineapples". blogs.bl.uk. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
- ↑ John, Hawkesworth (1803). Asiaticus: in two parts. Part the first, ecclesiastical, chronological, and historical sketches respecting Bengal. Part the second, the epitaphs in the different burial grounds in and about Calcutta. Search this book on
- ↑ "Graveyard Tales — a tour of Kolkata's most intriguing cemeteries". www.telegraphindia.com. Retrieved 2023-02-08.
- ↑ "Here lies Hindoo Stuart: Inside the 250-year-old Park Street cemetery". The Indian Express. 2018-01-28. Retrieved 2023-02-08.
This article "Rose Aylmer" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Rose Aylmer. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
