Sibella Elizabeth Miles (''née'' Hatfield; 1800–1882), was an English schoolteacher, poet and writer of the 19th century.
Biography
Sibella Elizabeth Miles was born at
Falmouth 28 September 1800, and was the daughter of John Westby Hatfield, an auctioneer in West Cornwall, who died at York 13 January 1839, aged 72, by his wife Sibella, who died on 1 June 1832, aged 68.
Sibella Miles ran a girls' boarding-school at
Penzance
Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated ...
for a number of years prior to 1833 and occupied her leisure hours with the composition of poetry. On 13 August 1833 she married, at Madron, Cornwall, Alfred Miles, a
commander
Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain.
...
in the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
, who was afterwards an assistant in the
hydrographic department
Hydrographics may refer to:
*Hydrography, the measurement of physical characteristics of waters and marginal land
*Hydrographics (printing), a printing technique for three-dimensional objects
* Hydrographic Department, UK agency for providing hydr ...
of the admiralty, and edited two editions (1841 and 1852) of
Horsburgh's ''Indian Directory''. He died at
Lympston, Devonshire, 28 November 1851, leaving one son, Frederick Arundel Miles, who died 3 June 1862, aged 26, and one daughter, Helen Jane Arundel Miles, a book illustrator. Mrs. Miles died at 54 South Lambeth Road on 29 March 1882.
Works
She wrote:
# ''The Wanderer of Scandinavia, or Sweden delivered'', in five cantos, 1826, 2 vols.
# ''Moments of Loneliness, or Prose and Poetic Efforts'', 1829.
# ''Fruits of Solitude'', 1831. This was dedicated to Sir R. T. Wilson, and a letter from him to her is printed in his ''Essay on Canning's Administration''.
# ''Essay on the Factory Question'' (anon.), 1844.
# ''Leisure Evenings, or Records of the Past'', 1860.
# ''The Grotto of Neptune'', 1864.
Many of her contributions appeared in the ''Forget-me-Not'' for 1825 and subsequent years, the ''Selector or Cornish Magazine'', 1826–8, the ''Oriental Herald'' for 1827 and later volumes, and the ''Nautical Magazine'' for 1833 onwards. Some poems in ''Original Cornish Ballads'', 1846 (pt. ii.), with the introductory essay, were by her, and she wrote the introduction to ''Te Deum, with illustrations by Helen J. A. Miles'' (1877). Her lines on ''St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall'', are quoted in works on West Cornwall.
References
;Works cited
*
;Attribution
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Miles, Sibella Elizabeth
1800 births
1882 deaths
19th-century English poets
People from Falmouth, Cornwall
English women novelists
English women poets
19th-century English novelists
19th-century English women writers