Charlotte Elliott

17 March 1789—22 Sept. 1871

CHARLOTTE ELLIOTT was of a godly and highly gifted family. Her maternal grandfather, the Rev. Henry Venn, of Huddersfield, and Yelling, England, was a divine of apostolic character. He wrote The Complete Duty of Man (1763), and was one of that gifted band of godly ministers, whose labors and writings were blessed so greatly in bringing about and promoting “The Great Awakening” of the last century, among the churches of Great Britain. He married (1757) a daughter of the Rev. Thomas Bishop, D.D., an eminent divine of Ipswich. Their eldest daughter, Eling, so often addressed in Mr. Venn’s memoirs, was married December 20, 1785, to Charles Elliott, Esq., of Clapham and Brighton. Of their six children, Charlotte was the third daughter. The Rev. Edward Bishop Elliott and the Rev. Henry Venn Elliott were her brothers. The Rev. John Venn, the highly honored Rector of Clapham, was her uncle.

Charlotte was born March 18, 1789, at Westfield Lodge, Brighton. Her childhood was passed in a circle of great refinement and piety. She was highly educated, and developed at an early age a great passion for music and art. In 1821, she became, and continued to be until death, a confirmed invalid. At times she suffered greatly, but with the utmost resignation. It was not until 1822 that she was brought into the full assurance of faith. The Rev. Dr. Caesar Malan, of Geneva, Switzerland, being on a visit to her father’s Clapham residence, Grove House, was the happy instrument of her deliverance from the burden of guilt. Her health was improved by a visit, the following year, to Normandy. But, in 1829, she once more became an almost helpless sufferer, with only occasional intervals of relief. In 1833, she was deprived of her godly father by death. She undertook (1834) the editorial supervision of The Christian Remembrancer Pocket Book, an Annual, and (1836) of the Invalid’s Hymn Book, works previously conducted by her friend, Miss Harriet Kiernan, who was then in the last stages of consumption. The Annual she edited for twenty-five years. Many of her poems appeared in it. To the edition of the Invalid’s Hymn Book, enlarged and edited by herself, anonymously, she contributed 115 hymns; and among them her admirable hymn, “Just as I am, without one plea.”

She contributed several hymns (1835) to a selection of Psalms and Hymns, by her brother, Rev. Henry V. Elliott. She also published (1836) Hours of Sorrow Cheered and Comforted. Her Morning and Evening Hymns for a Week, was printed privately in 1837 and published in 1842. A visit to Scotland in 1835 and to Switzerland in 1887 benefited her considerably. Her greatly endeared sister-in-law, Henry’s wife, died in 1841. Her own mother, after a year's severe illness, died in April, 1843. Two of her sisters soon followed. She herself was brought almost to the gates of death. Her home was thus broken up, and, in 1845, she and her surviving sister, after a summer’s sojourn on the Continent, fixed their home at Torquay. At the end of fourteen years, she returned to Brighton. A volume of her Poems appeared in 1863. Her beloved brother, Henry, died in 1863. Once only (1867) she ventured again from home, and passed a few weeks at a neighboring village. In 1869, she was brought very low, but rallied slightly. She continued bedridden until September 22, 1871, when she sweetly fell asleep. Greatly as she suffered, her life was prolonged to an extreme old age (eighty-two), and filled up with deeds of beneficence. She shrank from everything like ostentation, nearly all her books having been issued anonymously. The following stanzas are from a loving epistle to her sister, Eleanor, written, in the immediate prospect of death, at fourscore years of age:

Sweet has been our earthly union,
Sweet our fellowship of love:
But more exquisite communion
Waits us in our home above;
Nothing there can loose or sever
Ties ordained to last for ever.

Place me in those arms as tender,
But more powerful far than thine:
For a while thy charge surrender
To His guardianship divine:
Lay me on my Saviour’s breast,
There to find eternal rest.

by Edwin Hatfield
Poets of the Church (1884)

Featured Hymns:

Just as I am, without one plea

Publications of Hymns:

The Invalid’s Hymn Book

1st ed. (1834): PDF
— (1835):
2nd ed. (1841): PDF
4,000 (1843)
5,000 (1844): PDF
6,000 (1845): PDF
10,000 (1850): PDF
12,000 (1854): PDF
13,000 (1855)

Christian Remembrancer Pocket Book (Annual, 1834–1859)

Hours of Sorrow

1st ed. (1836): PDF
2nd ed. (1840)
3rd ed. (1844)
4th ed. (1849): PDF
5th ed. (1856)
6th ed. (1863): PDF
7th ed. (1869): PDF

Morning and Evening Hymns for a Week (ca. 1837): PDF

Poems by C.E. (1863) ?

Thoughts in Verse on Sacred Subjects

1st ed. (1869): WorldCat
2nd ed. (1871): WorldCat

see also:

H.V. Elliott, Psalms and Hymns (1835): PDF

Life and Hymns:

Josiah Bateman, Life of the Rev. Henry Venn Elliott, M.A. (London: Macmillan & Co., 1868): Archive.org

Josiah Miller, “Charlotte Elliott,” Singers and Songs of the Church (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1869), pp. 461–462: Archive.org

Octavius Winslow, The King in his Beauty: A Tribute to the Memory of Miss Charlotte Elliott (London: John F. Shaw & Co, 1871): WorldCat

“Obituary: Charlotte Elliott,” The Christian Observer, no. 408 (Dec., 1871), pp. 941–945: PDF

Eleanor Babington, Selections from the Poems of Charlotte Elliott (London: Religious Tract Society, 1873): Archive.org

Eleanor Babington, Leaves from the Unpublished Journals, Letters, and Poems of Charlotte Elliott (London: Religious Tract Society, 1874): Archive.org

John Hunt, “The Author of ‘Just As I Am,’” The Day of Rest, vol. 4, no. 6 (6 Feb. 1875), pp. 95–96: Google Books

“Charlotte Elliott and Her Poetry,” The Quiver: An Illustrated Magazine, vol. 12 (1882), pp. 349–352: Google Books

Edwin Hatfield, “Charlotte Elliott,” Poets of the Church (NY: A.D.F. Randolph, 1884), pp. 228–230: Archive.org

Charlotte Elliott, Just As I Am, memorial sketch by H.L.L. [Jane Borthwick], illustrations by Clark Stanton (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1885): PDF

Emma Pitman, “Charlotte Elliott,” Lady Hymn Writers (London: T. Nelson & Sons, 1892), pp. 83–93: Archive.org

Frederic Boase, “Charlotte Elliott,” Modern English Biography, vol. 1 (Truro: Netherton & Worth, 1892), p. 981: Google Books

J.D., “Charlotte Elliott,” A Dictionary of Hymnology, ed. John Julian (London: J. Murray, 1892), p. 328: Google Books

Robyn L. Edwards, “They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Wait”: Resignation in the Lives of Charlotte Elliott, Frances Havergal, and Fanny Crosby, dissertation (Briercrest Biblical Seminary, 2001): WorldCat

Faith Cook, “Charlotte Elliott,” Our Hymn Writers and Their Hymns (Webster, NY: Evangelical Press, 2005), pp. 364–368.

Charlotte Elliott, Hymnary.org:
https://hymnary.org/person/Elliott_Charlotte

Nancy Jiwon Cho, “Charlotte Elliott,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology:
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/c/charlotte-elliott

Bonnie Shannon McMullen, “Charlotte Elliott,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/8672