Publications
Harriet Elizabeth Rowell (AKA Elphinstone Dick), by Roy Grant, published June 2015 in Sussex Family Historian (vol. 21 no. 6, article, pp.284-286) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15860] & The Keep [LIB/508876]
Preview:Six months ago, the SFHG journal included Geoff Rowell's article (Making Ends Meet) about his Brighton born ancestor George Richard ROWELL (son of a Brighton watchmaker) who emigrated to Melbourne in Australia. Geoff wondered what inspired his ancestor George to leave Brighton, and raised the issue that Australia may have been considered as a place to send a black sheep that the other members of the family wanted rid of. I suppose most of us enjoy having a black sheep somewhere in our ancestry, for we openly boast of being related to lotharios, mistresses, bigamists, thieves, embezzlers, criminals, whores, and even murderers. Whilst none of these terms seem to apply to Geoff's relative George, some research I did a while back on the MOON family of Brighton, does indicate that in the Victorian era, George's sister Harriet Elizabeth ROWELL (born 1852, not 1858) may have been thought by her family to have a less conventional approach to life. Although not a black sheep by any means, many prudish Victorians may have nevertheless thought of Harriet ROWELL as a misfit. In fact one more recent Australian article I came across (http://melbqueerhistory.tripod.com/rossdick.html) categorically identified her, under her pseudonym of Elphinstone DICK, as a lesbian. If that were to have been the case, it is quite conceivable that Harriet and her close confident (Alice MOON also of Brighton) may have been dispatched to Australia by two comfortably off, dyed-in-the-wool, Victorian fathers who felt unable to comprehend their daughters 'attachment' for each other.