Edwin Eddison

Edwin Eddison (b. Gateford, Worksop, Nottinghamshire, 22 June 1805; d. Headingley Hill, Leeds, 13 January 1867)

Edwin Eddison (b. Worksop, c. 1823; d. reg. Hastings, Sussex, July-Sep. 1867)

Edwin Eddison (1805-1867) was fifth of nine children, and the fourth of six sons, of John Eddison (1756-1812) and Ann Booth (1770-1845).  He lived in the Leeds area for most of his life, having come there from Worksop in his youth.

E.R. Eddison's uncle, John Edwin Eddison

In Leeds on 18 November 1830, he married Hannah Maria Baker (1809-1872), and they had nine children, the first of which died in infancy.  The ninth child was the eighth son, so named Octavius (1850-1916), and he became the father of fantasist E.R. Eddison.  One of Octavius’s older brothers, John Edwin Eddison (1843-1929) became a professor of veterinary medicine. He had literary interests, and was a friend of Andrew Lang. Though married, he was childless, and his nephew E.R. Eddison was one of the three beneficiaries of his large estate.

Edwin Eddison was a solicitor, and served as Town Clerk in Leeds for several years.  He kept a farm at Adel, where he practiced animal husbandry, producing some of the finest breeds of animals. He was also a member of the Society of Friends. Edwin Eddison suffered from heart problems for the last year of his life, and died at the age of sixty-one.

Because he was born in Worksop, it has been believed that this Edwin Eddison was the author of a History of Worksop; with Historical, Descriptive, and Discursive Sketches of Sherwood Forest and the Neighborhood (London: Longman and Co.; Worksop: S. Sisson, 1854), but recent research has shown this to be by another Edwin Eddison (c. 1823-1867), the son of Benjamin Eddison.  This Edwin Eddison was a resident of Worksop through the early 1860s. He was also a solicitor, and his wife’s name was Mary.  Which Edwin Eddison wrote the serial “Dick Turpin and His Horse” that appeared in New Sporting Magazine (March, June and July 1865) remains unknown.  These two Edwin Eddisons were likely related. With some overlapping biographical facts, they have become easy to confuse.  This entry is an attempt to disambiguate the two.

George Frost

George Frost (b. Clapham, London, 25 August 1857; d. Banstead, Surrey, 23 December 1944)

The British Museum Catalogue attributes three books published as by “George Frost” to Mrs. Octavius Eddison, the mother of fantasist E.R. Eddison.  Closer study of the three volumes show that one, The Troubles of Monsieur Bourgeois (1890), is erroneously attributed to her, and in this instance the pseudonym “George Frost” was used by George E. Vail, an Englishman resident in Paris, and author of L’Art du Patinage (1886). The other two “George Frost” books were certainly authored by Mrs. Eddison.

She was born Helen Louisa Rücker, the fifth of six children of Daniel Henry Rücker (1813-1890), a merchant of colonial produce, and Mary Antoinette Williams (1824-1905), the eldest daughter of a Dublin merchant, who were married in Dublin on 4 November 1847.  Helen had three brothers and two sisters.  Her eldest brother was Arthur William Rücker (1848-1915), who was educated at Oxford and became a distinguished professor of physics at the Royal College of Science, London, and later the first principal of London University from 1901 to 1908.  He was knighted in 1902. 

Helen was apparently educated privately, and she married Octavius Eddison (1850-1916), an Oxford-educated solicitor, at the Holy Trinity Church, Clapham, London, on 2 March 1882.  They settled in Adel, near Leeds, and had two sons, Eric Rücker Eddison (1882-1945), a civil servant and fantasist, and Colin Rücker Eddison (1889-1957), who was for many years active in promoting Christian Science.

Both of Helen Eddison’s books came out the same year, one in the summer and the other in the autumn:  Where Is Your Husband? and Other Brown Studies (London: Thomas Burleigh, [June] 1901), and A Medley Book (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., [November] 1901). Despite her second book appearing from a major London publisher, it is by far the rarer of the two.  Both books are a mix of fiction and meditative essays, with the essays dominating the contents. The first book reprints items from The Leeds Mercury.  A Medley Book contains one novella, “What Mrs. Dunn Knew”, which borders on the fantastic, and could be considered a psychological ghost story. Mrs. Dunn’s friend Margaret loved one man but married another, who, a few years later on his death bed, threatened that he would never allow her to marry again. Over time, Margaret’s relationship with her first love is rekindled, and on the evening of their wedding she is found dead. Margaret left a letter for her friend Mrs. Dunn in explanation, but the interpretation is left open for the reader as to whether Margaret’s haunting was real or merely psychological. The author of the tale did not interest herself in stylistic effects or atmosphere, but primarily in the young woman’s melodrama. Thus the story has a curiously flat tone to it. 

Helen Eddison also published a serial Fate and a Fiddle in The Yorkshire Post Weekly (beginning circa October 1906), and contributed to The Academy, Country Life, and other publications.  Late in life she accompanied her son Colin on trips to the United States for his work on promoting Christian Science.

Amy G. Eddison

Amy G. Eddison (b. Leeds, Yorkshire 22 November 1868; d. Harrogate, Yorkshire 8 March 1962)

Amy Gordon Eddison was the fourth of five children (two boys, followed by three girls) of John Eddison (1835-1920), a land surveyor, auctioneer, and insurance agent, and his first wife Emily Jemima Horncastle (1834-1871), who were married in Firbeck, near Worksop, Nottinghamshire, on 3 March 1859.  In July 1874, three years after his wife’s death, John Eddison married Mary Best (1847-1893), and they had two daughters.  In the nineteenth century there was a rather large population of Eddisons in Yorkshire.  Noted fantasist E. R. Eddison (1883-1945) was a second cousin of Amy G. Eddison, as they shared great grandparents. E. R. Eddison’s grandfather Edwin Eddison (1805-1867) was a younger brother of Amy Eddison’s grandfather William Eddison (1801-1970); the brothers were both the children of John Eddison (1756-1812) and Ann Booth Eddison (1770-1845). 

Little is known of Amy Eddison’s life.  In the 1890s, she moved southwards and resided in the greater London area for many years. She wrote and illustrated her first book, Tales the old Governess Told: A Week of Stories Spun by the Story-Spider (London: H.R. Allenson, [1907]), as by A.G. Eddison, after which time she signed her work as by Amy G. Eddison.  The book begins with an explanation that the very old governess, who had been governess for three families, has a Story-Spider that lives in her brain, and has spun the tales she told.  There follows seven tales, one for each day of the week, beginning with Monday and “The Bumble Bee Brownie” and ending with Sunday, “Christina and the Christ Child”.  Each tale has an illustration by the authoress. The most interesting stories are the fairy tales, including “The Bumble Tree Brownie” and “The Mermaid”.  Less interesting are the non-fantasies, like “Eric the Terrible”, which concerns an obnoxious young boy.

                     

Miss Eddison also contributed to periodicals: one sentimental religious story, “The Flash in the Pan”, is known to have appeared in Quiver (March 1908). Around 1909, she became involved with W.T. Stead’s famous “Books for the Bairns”—small cheaply-produced and often illustrated booklets for children.  The series ran from 1896 through 1923, outlasting their originator, W.T. Stead, who died on the Titanic in 1912.  Amy G. Eddison contributed six volumes, and three of these were reprinted in updated forms.  A few have Eddison’s own illustrations.  Her contributions include:  A Brownie’s Love Story (no. 168, January 1910); The Enchanted Village (no. 178, November 1910); Little Peter—Second Part of the Enchanted Village (no. 179, December 1910); The Spotted Cat (no. 192, December 1911); Kit-Kat (no. 200, August 1912); The Tale of Pat (no. 201, August 1912); and three new editions: Tale of a Cat: Kit-Kat and His Friends (no. 254, August 1917, illustrated by the author); The Tale of Pat (no. 266, August 1918); and A Brownie’s Love Story (new series, no. 19, June 1923, with illustrations by Brinsley Le Fanu and the author). 

                                                             

Amy G. Eddison never married, and late in life returned to Yorkshire, where she died at the age of 93.