Mary Ellen Meredith

The author's first wife

Portrait of Mary Ellen Meredith
by Henry Wallis R.W.S.
(1830-1916)
dated 1858, pencil
4 x 3 1/4 in. (10.2 x 8.3 cm.)

Henry Wallis's deeply sensitive portrait of his lover, the beautiful Mary Ellen Meredith (1821-61) dates the same year that she gave birth to their son Harold known as Felix, who was born in April 1858. Three months earlier Wallis had drawn a portrait of her father, the poet and novelist Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) (National Portrait Gallery, London). While ironically Wallis's sensational painting Chatterton (RA 1856) had featured Mary Ellen's husband - the then unrecognised poet George Meredith (1828-1909) in the role as his tragic 18th century counterpart.

Mary Ellen was an adept writer, she was witty, intellectual and free-spirited. Holman-Hunt described her as a "dashing horsewoman", while C. L. Clodd's Memoirs recalled that those "who knew her say she was charming, with intellectual gifts above average". She was a woman who broke all Victorian conventions when in the summer of 1857 she left her husband. Contrary to popular belief she did not elope with Wallis immediately although their affair had probably begun in about February that year. Rather the independently minded Mrs Meredith went with her two small children to Seaford, intending to live by her own writing and on a small private income. During the late summer she and Wallis spent a glorious holiday in Wales and the following April their son Harold was born. She was the eldest of five children, born in Stamford Street London in July 1821. Following the death of her sister in 1826 her mother suffered increasing mental illness so Mary Ellen was largely raised by her adoring father, who taught her to pursue life and knowledge to the full. Thomas Love Peacock, a child of the enlightenment, was closely associated with such figures as John Stuart Mill, T. J. Hogg and P. B. Shelley, who with the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley as well as the unfettered Claire Clairmont served as dominant role models in Mary Ellen's life.

From her youth Peacock's daughter wrote prose and poetry and with her father compiled a number of cookery books. Her precocious childhood culminated in a tragic first love when her first husband, Edward Nicolls was drowned at sea in March 1844, three months after their marriage. By then she was expecting her first child, Edith. Enter the then unknown writer, George Meredith, who was handsome, brilliant and charming and seven years her junior. Though he later denied it, Meredith fell in love immediately and after six proposals they married in 1849. At first all appeared well, both pursuing their literary careers, at times Meredith publishing her work under his own name. But financial constraints, a lack of mutual understanding, numerous miscarriages and infant deaths, despite a healthy son named Arthur, led to irreconcilable difficulties. The situation was not helped by Thomas Peacock's obvious dislike of son-in-law especially as the latter did not share the family's culinary passions. Among the Meredith's many literary friends was Henry Wallis - a mutual friend of Mary Ellen's brother Edward as well as Peter Augustin Daniel (in whose room at Gray's Inn Wallis is recorded as having painted Chatterton. Mary Ellen posed for Wallis's Fireside Reverie, shown at the Academy in 1855. The same year Wallis asked George to model for the figure of Chatterton. Mary Ellen did not enjoy good health, especially during her many pregnancies and found little comfort from George who was often away. She admitted in her own personal writings that she no longer loved him and was seeking an ideal love. She and Wallis corresponded by letter and in one she invited him stay at their home on his return from France, where he had been working on Montaigne (R.A. 1857). Unlike her husband, Mrs Meredith cared little for public opinion and contravening mid-Victorian conventions in early summer 1857 she left the matrimonial home. Later that summer she and Wallis went Wales, where she most probably conceived their child, Harold, whom Wallis affectionately called Felix meaning love child. During the winter of 1858 Wallis took Mary Ellen to Capri so that she could regain her failing health. Although she returned to England alone in early 1859 it has been argued that their love affair was not over since on Feb 14th 1859 Wallis applied for separate lodgings - possibly a love nest. Furthermore Wallis continued up until his death to be on close terms with the Peacock family. She was however distraught finding on her return from Capri that Meredith had seized Arthur from her former parents-in-law and from then on was rarely allowed to see him. She lived in recluse with Felix near to her father at Oatlands Park, Weybridge and died in 1861 aged only forty of kidney failure. None of the main men in her life were among the three mourners at her funeral. Her father was broken hearted and lost his desire to write. Though Meredith never forgave his wife his writings attempted to understand her predicament. It has been argued that Mary Ellen was the great love of his life; certainly their relationship inspired some of his most insightful works such as Modern Love and the Egoist. By the time of her death George Meredith was on the road to success, by the 1890's he was regarded as one of the most respected literary figures of his day and in 1905 was awarded the Order of Merit. As testament of his love, Wallis kept certain of her possessions such as her green gown, matching parasols, some of her writings as well the present drawing which he left to their son, Felix. His painting of Mary Ellen in Fireside Reverie is to date unlocated and thus the present drawing is the only known image of this archetypal Victorian heroine.