Esther Milnes Day: Difference between revisions

| image = Esther Day - James Millar.jpg

| alt = Portrait of Esther Day by James Millar

| caption = Portrait of Mrs. Esther Day by [[James Millar (artist)|James Millar]] (1735–1805)

| birth_place = [[Wakefield]], England

'''Esther Milnes Day''' (née Milnes; 1752–1792) was a British author, abolitionist, and philanthropist.

Esther Milnes, an heiress, was the daughter of Elizabeth Milnes (d. 1757) and Richard Milnes (1705–1757), of Chesterfield.<ref name="ODNB" /> She was educated at "Mrs. Dennis's Female Boarding School in Queen's Square."<ref name="Day" />

Milnes married [[Thomas Day (writer)|Thomas Day]] (1748–1789) at Bath on 7 August 1778.<ref name="ODNB" />

Thomas Day was a singular character: an abolitionist, socialist, republican, campaigner for clean air and land reclamation, and hugely popular writer of children's fiction. His unsuccessful — until meeting Esther Milnes — search for a wife and subsequent scheme to illegally adopt and educate a young girl, [[Sabrina Sidney]], in an ultimately unsuccessful plan adapted from [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]]'s [[Emile, or On Education|Emile]], have provided much material for historians and other commentators.<ref>See, Hefor example, Iles, Katharine. ''[http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/7211 Constructing the eighteenth-century woman: the adventurous history of Sabrina Sidney]''. University of Birmingham. Ph.D., 2012; and Moore, Wendy. ''How to Create the Perfect Wife''. Orion, 2013 {{ISBN|0297863797}}, {{ISBN|9780297863793}}</ref> Despite that significant setback he continued a proponent of Rousseauism and insisted that he and his wife live a simple and secluded life. Esther was required to give up many of her social connections, luxuries, and previous leisure-time occupations, such as musicthe harpsichord. Unusually, however, her husband insisted that she retain control over her own finances in case she ever tired of their [[ascetic]] livesstyle of life.<ref name="DNB">Stephen, Leslie. "[https://www-oxforddnb-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/odnb/9780192683120.001.0001/odnb-9780192683120-e-7372 Day, Thomas (1748–1789)]." ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Oxford University Press. Accessed 17 Aug. 2022.</ref><ref name="Seward">Seward, Anna. ''Life of Erasmus Darwin''. Studley, Warwickshire: Brewin Books, 2010 ([https://archive.org/details/annasewardslifeo0000sewa/page/72/mode/2up Internet Archive])</ref>

In 1779 the couple moved to a small estate at [[Stapleford Abbotts]], near Abridge in Essex. In 1780, Thomas Day bought an estate at Anningsley in [[Surrey]] and the couple moved there in 1783. It was a philanthropic project forwhereby boththe husband and wife and theyDays sought to improve the conditionslives of their workers.

Esther Day had no children, and Thomas Lowndes (born c. 1766), her nephewdeceased sister Elizabeth's son, was treated by the couple as their heir.<ref name="ODNB">Rowland, Peter. "[https://www-oxforddnb-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-7372 Day, Thomas (1748–1789), author and political campaigner]." ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. 03. Oxford University Press. Accessed 16 Aug. 2022.</ref> Thomas Day died in a riding accident on 28 September 1789 and Esther Day, debilitated by her loss, died less than three years later.

After their deaths, Lowndes edited and published ''Select miscellaneous productions, of Mrs. Day, and Thomas Day'' in 1805; the collection consists of some unpublished works of Thomas Day, Esther Day's juvenilia, and some of his own poems to "increase the size of the work."<ref name="Day">Day, Esther Milnes, 1753-1792; Day, Thomas, 1748-1789; Lowndes, Thomas, b. 1766?. ''Select miscellaneous productions, of Mrs. Day, and Thomas Day, esq., in verse and prose: also, some detached pieces of poetry''. London: Cadell and Davies, 1805 ([https://archive.org/details/selectmiscellane00daye/page/n3/mode/2up Digitization], Internet Archive)</ref> The collection is dedicated to "the fair females of the British Isles," who are reassured bywhom the editor reassures that with appropriate education, they would no doubt surpass men. In the "apology" which precedes Esther Day's work, Lowndes's comments informs us that the poems were written when she was between eleven and fifteen and that he could find nothing written much later. He professes himself astonished that someone so talented should have ceased writing, and speculates that she may have been overly diffident.<ref name="Day" /> A twentieth-century commentator called it "earnest, remarkable work" for someone so young.<ref>Blain, Virginia, et al., eds. ''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English''. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990, p. 273. ([https://archive.org/details/feministcompanio00blai/page/272/mode/2up?q=Esther+Milnes+Day Internet Archive])</ref>

* Seward, Anna. ''Life of Erasmus Darwin''. Studley, Warwickshire: Brewin Books, 2010 ([https://archive.org/details/annasewardslifeo0000sewa/page/72/mode/2up Internet Archive])\

==External siteslinks==

*Online books <[https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Day%2c%20Esther%20Milnes%2c%201753%2d1792> Online books]