Dame Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe (22 September 1762 – 17 January 1850) was an English artist and

diarist A diary is a written or audiovisual record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digital. A personal d ...

in colonial Canada. Her husband,

John Graves Simcoe John Graves Simcoe (25 February 1752 – 26 October 1806) was a British Army general and the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada from 1791 until 1796 in southern Ontario and the watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior. He founded Yor ...

, was the first

Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada The following is a list of lieutenant governors of Ontario and the lieutenant governors of the former colony of Upper Canada. The office of Lieutenant Governor of Ontario was created in 1867, when the Province of Ontario was created upon Confed ...

. Her diary gives an effective account of Canadian life.

Biography

She was born Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim to Lt Col. Thomas Gwillim and Elizabeth Spinckes in the village of

Aldwincle Aldwincle (sometimes Aldwinkle or Aldwinckle) is a village and civil parish in North Northamptonshire, with a population at the time of the 2011 census of 322. It stands by a bend in the River Nene, to the north of Thrapston. The name of the ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, Her father died before her birth and her mother shortly afterwards. After her

baptism Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost ...

, on the same day as her mother's burial, she was taken into the care of her mother's younger sister, Margaret. In commemoration of her

posthumous birth A posthumous birth is the birth of a child after the death of a biological parent. A person born in these circumstances is called a posthumous child or a posthumously born person. Most instances of posthumous birth involve the birth of a child af ...

, Elizabeth was given the middle name Posthuma. Her adopted mother, Margaret, married Admiral

Samuel Graves Admiral Samuel Graves (17 April 1713 – 8 March 1787) was a British Royal Navy admiral who is probably best known for his role early in the American Revolutionary War. Ancestry He is thought to have been born in Castledawson, Northern Irelan ...

on 14 June 1769 and she grew up at Graves's estate, Hembury Fort near

Honiton Honiton ( or ) is a market town and civil parish in East Devon, situated close to the River Otter, north east of Exeter in the county of Devon. Honiton has a population estimated at 11,822 (based on mid-year estimates for the two Honiton Ward ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

. Gwillim was one of a group of friends that included

Mary Anne Burges Mary Anne Burges (6 December 1763 – 10 August 1813) was a Scottish writer who wrote a successful sequel to ''The Pilgrim's Progress''. Life Burges was born in Edinburgh in 1763 to George and Anne Burges. Her father had distinguished himself a ...

in Honiton. On 30 December 1782, Elizabeth married

, Admiral Graves's godson. Between the years 1784 and 1804, they had eleven children, among them Francis Simcoe, after whom they named Castle Frank. Nine survived to adulthood; Katherine, their only child to be born in Upper Canada, and John Cornwall Simcoe died in infancy. Katherine is buried at

Fort York Fort York (french: Fort-York) is an early 19th-century military fortification in the Fort York neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The fort was used to house members of the British and Canadian militaries, and to defend the entrance of t ...

Garrison. Elizabeth was a wealthy heiress, who acquired a 5,000-acre (2025 ha) estate near

, and built Wolford Lodge, which remained the Simcoe family seat until 1923.''Dictionary of Canadian Biography'
SIMCOE, JOHN GRAVES
/ref> She is buried at Wolford Chapel.

Legacy

Portion of Elizabeth Simcoe's Diary, pages 6-7 (I0032531)

Elizabeth Simcoe's diary provides a valuable impression of life in colonial Ontario. First published in 1911, there was a subsequent transcription published in 1965 and a paperback version at the turn of the 21st century, over 200 years after she wrote it. She also left a series of 595

watercolours Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to ...

that depict the town of

York, Upper Canada York was a town and second capital of the colony of Upper Canada. It is the predecessor to the old city of Toronto (1834–1998). It was established in 1793 by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe as a "temporary" location for the capital of ...

. She proposed the naming of Scarborough Township, an eastern Toronto district, after Scarborough, North Yorkshire. The townships of

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north ...

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

and West Gwillimbury, just south of

Lake Simcoe Lake Simcoe is a lake in southern Ontario, Canada, the fourth-largest lake wholly in the province, after Lake Nipigon, Lac Seul, and Lake Nipissing. At the time of the first European contact in the 17th century the lake was called ''Ouentironk' ...

, Ontario, are also named after her family. The Township of Whitchurch, today the town of

Whitchurch–Stouffville Whitchurch-Stouffville ( 2021 population 49,864) is a town in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada, approximately north of downtown Toronto, and north-east of Toronto Pearson International Airport. It is in area, and located in the ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, honours her place of birth.Jean Barkey, et al.
Whitchurch Township
(Toronto: Stoddart, 1993), p. 14. In December 2007, a statue of Elizabeth Gwillim Simcoe was raised in the town of

Bradford West Gwillimbury Bradford West Gwillimbury is a town in south-central Ontario, in the County of Simcoe in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area on the Holland River. West Gwillimbury takes its name from the family of Elizabeth Simcoe, née ''Gwillim''. The former ...

, when it commemorated the 150th anniversary of its incorporation. The statue stands in a small park in front of the Bradford post office, at the corner of John Street West and Barrie Street.

References

* * * * *
Travels With Elizabeth Simcoe
Archives of Ontario.

External links

* *
Travels with Elizabeth Simcoe: A Visual Journey Through Upper and Lower Canada
', online exhibit on Archives of Ontario website
Simcoe family fonds, Archives of Ontario
{{DEFAULTSORT:Simcoe, Elizabeth 1762 births 1850 deaths People from Aldwincle Scarborough, Toronto Pre-Confederation Ontario people Canadian diarists Canadian women painters English watercolourists Women watercolorists 18th-century Canadian artists 18th-century Canadian non-fiction writers 18th-century Canadian women artists 18th-century Canadian women writers Canadian women non-fiction writers Women diarists