| Notes |
- Lived after marriage at St Nicholas St. - Catherine Beale p. 61. Met John Coltman c. 1757 (Beale p. 43). Correspondencebegan Jan 1763. After the death of her husband, she lived with daugher Elizabeth at Bow Bridge House. 'The lilly ofDuffield' - Ruth Denton. Ruth Denton has the date of birth as 1736, and died 1811. She was an only child (RD).
- She was the only child of her parents. [1]
- From "Miss Hutton and Friends", Catherine Beale
Elizabeth Cartwright, afterwards Mrs. Coltman, and
the mother of John and Samuel Coltman, of Elizabeth
Heyrick and Mary Ann Coltman, was born in the year
1737 at the retired and pleasant village of Duffield in
Derbyshire.
Among her ancestors she remembered two great-
grandfathers who had both served in the army of Oliver
Cromwell. One of these, a lieutenant under General
Ireton, returned, after the expiration of the wars, one
Saturday evening to his native village of Duffield. On
pulling off his boots, his stockings were found to have
wasted away; and his shirt, worn into fragments, was
committed to the flames. Retiring to bed, a luxury he
had not known for nine weeks, he was at first restless,
but falling asleep was left undisturbed ; when at
length he awoke, he found the shops open, and every
one pursuing their usual avocations ? he had slept
over the Sabbath day ! At the Restoration, in the
year 1660, he was offered a company, but he declined
the service.
Elizabeth Cartwright was the only child of her
parents, and showed an early taste for mental cultiva-
tion ; indeed, her mind soon proved itself of no mean
order. She was an ardent admirer of the works of
Nature, and possessed a talent for drawing; she had
remarkable skill in the cutting of flowers, landscapes,
etc., with her scissors, a beautiful specimen of which
was shown to Queen Charlotte. She united a great
deal of vivacity with much sweetness of disposition,
and, possessing great beauty of countenance and grace-
fulness of deportment, she was known among her
friends by the familiar appellation of the "Lily of
Duffield."
....
Miss Hutton, writing in 1802, says, "Mrs. Coltman,
when Miss Cartwright, was held up to me by my mother as
the model of all earthly perfection, and I believe she
deserved it better than most such models do.'* Ladies of
the eighteenth century were, as a rule, very domesticated ;
they could, to use Miss Hutton's words, make " flourishes
in pastry," also " puddings and shirts," but Mrs. Coltman, notwithstanding her domestic habits, found time for literary
pursuits ; and, before her marriage, she reviewed new
works and contributed to the periodicals of the day
Miss Hutton also had a high opinion of Mr. Coltman's
character and literary attainments ; she says : " With a
thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek, and a taste
for reading that was always an avidity, and has now
become a principle of his existence, he has been con-
fined nearly all his life to the manufacture of worsted.*
At first he despised the ignoble employment ; but
habit has not only reconciled him to it, but even
made it necessary. He spends many hours in the day
in his warehouse, and always the evening in his study.
. . . . Mr. Coltman's two sons only differ from the
rest of the world in a superior understanding, and a
strictness of morals which sets them above every kind of
subterfuge or palliation. They also inherit their mother's talent of painting."
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Abt 1737 - 1811 (74 years)
