Ellen 'Nellie' Millicent Ashburner Sickert (née Cobden, 18 August 1848 – 4 September 1914),[1] was a British writer, radical campaigner and suffragist.

[2] Her parents were Richard Cobden, radical MP and leader of the Anti-Corn Law League, and his Welsh wife Catherine Anne Williams.

[6] In 1856, when she was just seven years old, her 15-year old brother Richard Cobden died of scarlet fever whilst studying at a German boarding school.

[10] Her husband commissioned his friend and artist James McNeill Whistler to paint two portraits of her around the time of the marriage, titled Arrangement in Violet and Pink: Mrs Walter Sickert and Green and Violet: Portrait of Mrs Walter Sickert.

[11] Cobden financially supported her husbands own art career,[2] until she discovered in 1896 that he had been unfaithful to her for the duration of their marriage.

[13] When Anne stood trial and was imprisoned for two months for her suffragette activities, Ellen and another sister Jane Cobden celebrated her release over dinner at the Savoy Hotel.

The book centred around a spoilt heiress struggling with marital difficulties and social questions[1] and included a fictional depiction of the Cobden family home of Dunford House, near Heyshott, West Sussex.