Emily Trevenen was a benefactress and writer, born in Helston. She was a close friend of the Coleridge family.
Born in 1786, Emily Trevenen was the only child of Reverend Thomas Trevenen M.A., the vicar of Cardinham, Poundstock and then St. Mawgan-in-Meneage. In Cardinham, she became a close friend and companion of her cousin, Elizabeth Farquharson Trevenen, who was the daughter of her father's younger brother Captain James Trevenen and Elizabeth Farquharson. On Elizabeth Farquharson Trevenen’s early death in 1823 at the age 33, Emily arranged and published The Notes and Letters of Elizabeth Farquharson Trevenen.
Trevenen's mother died in 1812 and she nursed her father until his death in 1816. On her father's death, she inherited substantial wealth, enabling her to take a 1100-mile tour of the country in 1817. She spent time in the Lake District and parts of Scotland and kept a journal of the trip. She then nursed two ailing aunts in Bristol for a number of years, returning to Helston after their deaths sometime around 1824.
She became close friends with Reverend Derwent Coleridge, the son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and his wife Mary, after their arrival in Helston in 1827. Coleridge was the headmaster of Helston Grammar School. Trevenen was the godmother to their child and wrote a short book of didatic poems for him called Little Derwent’s Breakfast, which was published in 1839. She was close enough to the couple that she acted as their representative when Sara Coleridge, Derwent's sister, was married in Keswick 1829. On this journey, she stopped with her cousin Mary Arnold and her husband Thomas at Rugby, the parents of Matthew Arnold, and with Charles Kingsley’s father. During this visit, Trevenen recommended that Charles and his younger brother be placed under Derwent Coleridge at Helston Grammar School. These visits demonstrate Trevenen's varied social connections, which included Charles and Mary Lamb as well as the Southey and Wordsworth families. She remained in close correspondence with the Coleridges after they left Helston in 1841.
Trevenen was a generous philanthropist in Helston, subscribing and offering endowments to many charities and institutions. Her will bequeathed £500 to fund an annual Exhibition for a Helston Grammar School pupil to attend Oxford or Cambridge, which still exists today. Trevenen loaned £2,000 towards the building of Helston's Market House in 1837, now the frontage of the Museum of Cornish Life.
Sources
Carroll, Patrick. (2011). 'Helstonia – No. 1 Cross Street', patrickcarroll.co.uk. Available at: https://www.patrickcarroll.co.uk/helstonia-no-1-cross-street/. [Accessed 20 May 2023].
Emily Trevenen was the a niece of Elizabeth Trevenen and her first husband Captain James Trevenen. She was the daughter of James Trevenen's older brother, Reverend Thomas Trevenen. She was thus related to Henrietta Bowdler through her aunt's short lived marriage to Bowdler's brother Thomas in 1806.