Elizabeth Justice

After he was sentenced to be transported she turned to writing about her time in Russia as the first governess and the problems that her husband had caused her.

The day and location are unknown but her parents were Ann (born Ellis) and Dorset Surby and they lived in Hatton Garden in London.

[1] Her husband had been educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was Lord of the Manor of Rufforth and he had been called to the bar in 1727.

The notorious publisher Edmund Curll had managed to obtain four letters that she had written to a friend in London whilst she was in St Petersburg.

[5] She had agreed to become the governess to the three daughters of Hill Green who was a British merchant working in St Petersburg.

The book gives an unusual insight into life in Russia as viewed by an observer who was a woman and who was not an aristocrat.

[5] He had stolen dozens of valuable books from the Cambridge University Library[1] and he was placed on trial at the Old Bailey on 8 May 1736.

[2] She wrote the book, Amelia, Or, the Distress'd Wife: A History Founded on Real Circumstances.