Edith Blackwell Holden (26 September 1871 – 15 March 1920) was an English artist, writer and art teacher. She was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and specialised in painting animals and plants. While collecting flowers from a riverbank at Kew Gardens, Holden drowned in the Thames in 1920.
Early life
Edith Blackwell Holden was born on 26 September 1871 in Kings Norton, (now in Birmingham), Worcestershire. Edith's middle name honoured the physician, Elizabeth Blackwell.
Her mother was Emma Holden (), a Spiritualist and Unitarian, and former governess who wrote two religious books, Ursula's Childhood and Beatrice of St Mawse, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
Before the death of Edith's mother Emma in 1904, from breast cancer, the Holden family had become spiritualists. After Emma's death the Holdens held regular spiritualist seances at home in Olton, with the intention of communicating with the spirit of their deceased wife and mother. Holden and her four sisters were instrumental in assisting their father with these communications. Holden's father recorded them in his own diary, which was anonymously published only weeks before his death, She was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and specialised in painting animals and plants.
Marriage
In 1911 Holden, at the age of thirty-nine, married Ernest Smith, The couple had no children.
They moved to London,
When Ernest returned home that evening, his wife was out, but the table had been laid for the evening meal. Ernest assumed that she was with friends. It was not until the next morning that he learned that her body had been found at six o'clock on the Tuesday morning. The inquest established that she had tried to reach a branch of chestnut buds. The bough was out of reach, and with the aid of her umbrella, Edith had tried to break it off, fallen forward into the river and drowned.
Bibliography
- The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady (1977)
- The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady (1989)
- Birds
- Beasts and Fishes
- The Three Goats Gruff
- Mrs Strang's Annual for Children.
- The Hedgehog Feast (text by her great-niece Rowena Stot; 1978)