Elizabeth Siddal - Early Life

Early Life

Named Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall, after her mother, 'Lizzie' Siddall was born on 25 July 1829, at the family’s home at 7 Charles Street, Hatton Garden. Her parents were Charles Crooke Siddall, who claimed his family descended from nobility, and Eleanor Evans, from a family of English and Welsh descent. At the time of her birth, her father had a cutlery-making business but around 1831, her family moved to the borough of Southwark, in south London, a less salubrious area than Hatton Garden. In Southwark the rest of Lizzie Sidall's siblings were born: Lydia, to whom she was particularly close, Mary, Clara, James and Henry. Although there is no record of Lizzie Siddall having attended school, she could read and write, presumably having been taught by her parents. She developed a love of poetry at a young age, after discovering a poem by Tennyson on a scrap of newspaper that had been used to wrap a pat of butter; the discovery was an inspiration to start writing her own poems.