Emily, Lady Tennyson

Emily was the oldest of three daughters, raised by a single father, after her mother Sarah died when she was three years old.

She met Alfred when she was a girl, but they did not develop a romantic relationship until his brother Charles married her sister Louisa.

It was thirteen years before they would marry, due to her father's concerns about the degree to which Tennyson could provide for her on a poet's salary.

Aside from being a wife and mother of two sons, she ran large households and conducted business tasks for her husband.

Her father was a prosperous solicitor, secretary, and manager who acted for the Tennyson family many times over the years; her mother was a younger sister of Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin.

[1][2][4][3][5] Her mother died when Emily was three years of age, after which her devoted father provided a good education for the girls.

[7] He later wrote a sonnet about how he felt at the wedding of their siblings, where Emily was the bridesmaid:Love lighted down between them full of glee, And over his left shoulder laughed at thee, ‘O happy bridesmaid, make a happy bride.’ And all at once a pleasant truth I learn’d, For while the tender service made thee weep, I loved thee for the tear thou could’st not hide, And prest thy hand, and knew the press return’d, And thought, ‘My life is sick of single sleep:

It was called off in 1840, because of financial issues[6] and her father's wariness of Tennyson's ability to support a family on a poet's income.

[6] First living in Twickenham in London,[3] they established households in large houses with live-in servants, likely affordable due to a dowry from her father.

[6] Philip Larkin described Emily as the woman behind the man — she managed his business, ran his household, took care of and educated his children, entertained visitors, and was protective of him—while he wrote poetry.