Queer Places:
Elderfield, Main Road, Otterbourne, Winchester SO21 2EQ, UK
St Matthew Churchyard
Otterbourne, City of Winchester, Hampshire, England
Charlotte Mary Yonge (August 11, 1823 - May 24, 1901) was an English
novelist who wrote to the service of the church. Her books helped to spread
the influence of the Oxford Movement. Her abundant work is mostly out of
print. Christabel Coleridge was the
nominal author of Charlotte Mary Yonge: Her Life and Letters (1903), but the
text begins by reproducing an unpublished autobiographical essay Yonge wrote
in 1877, intercalated with remarks by Coleridge. The sections of the Life
written by Coleridge, conversely, consist of long extracts from Yonge’s
letters that take up almost as much space as Coleridge’s own words. Coleridge
undertook the biography out of personal friendship for Yonge, and its dialogic
form mimics the structure of a social relationship conducted through
conversation and correspondence. Anglican novelist Charlotte Yonge described
her life as structured by three great friendships, beginning in childhood with
a favorite cousin, “My dear, dear Anne, whom I loved always with all my
heart!”. Charlotte Yonge wrote enthusiastically in 1858 of “the beauty and
charms” of her brother’s new wife.
Charlotte Mary Yonge was born in Otterbourne, Hampshire, England, on 11
August 1823 to William Yonge and Fanny Bargus.[1] She
was educated at home by her father, studying Latin, Greek, French, Euclid, and
algebra.[2] Yonge's
devotion to her father was lifelong and her relationship with him seems to
have been for her the standard for all other relationships, including
marriage.[4] She
was born into a religious family background, was devoted to the High Church,
and much influenced by John Keble, Vicar of Hursley from 1835, a near
neighbour and one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Yonge is herself
sometimes referred to as "the novelist of the Oxford Movement",[6] as
her novels frequently reflect the values and concerns of Anglo-Catholicism.
She remained in Otterbourne all her life and for 71 years was a teacher in the
village Sunday school.[7] She
lived in a house called Elderfield (which became a grade 2 listed building in
1984). In 1868 a new parish was formed to the south of Yonge's home village of
Otterbourne; the parish was to contain the villages of Eastley and Barton.
Yonge donated £500 towards the parish church and was asked to choose which of
the two villages the parish should be named after. She chose Eastley, but
decided that it should be spelt Eastleigh as she perceived this as being more
modern.[8]
Yonge died in her home town of Otterbourne on 24 May 1901.
Elderfield
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