The Woman in the Chair: the Story of Eliza Conner (1829 - 1863)

 

The Woman in the Chair: the Story of Eliza Conner (1829 - 1863)

A while ago, a post by the local archives appeared on Facebook. It featured an 1863 clipping from The Hull News, which told of the strange funeral rites surrounding the death of ‘an old prostitute named Hill.’ According to the article, ten women tied the deceased to a chair, placed a glass of gin in her hand, a pipe in her mouth, and danced around her - a scene described as a ‘revolting exhibition of corrupted female humanity.’ The Vicar of Grimsby, Reverend Hulbert, had quite 'properly,’ the paper noted, refused to read her full funeral rites.

The woman’s name was not printed. Nor were the circumstances of her death. She was painted only in scandal and shame.

Her name was Eliza Conner.

Eliza died of heart disease at just 34.

She was born in Ireland in 1829. While the details of her journey to Grimsby remain unclear, we know that the Great Famine drove many to seek work in England, and it’s likely she first found herself in the industrial towns of Lancashire. There, she met Daniel Hill, a man 15 years her senior from Ashton-under-Lyne.

There is no record of marriage between Eliza and Daniel. Daniel had, in fact, married a woman named Maria in 1839, and was living with her and their children in the 1841 census. But by 1851, he appears alone in Manchester. A decade later, he and Eliza are in Lower Burgess Street, Grimsby, living as husband and wife with their infant son, John Daniel.

Tragically, John Daniel died in 1861 before reaching his first birthday.

Court reports reveal that Daniel was known to deal in stolen goods and ran a brothel out of their Lower Burgess Street residence. Eliza worked there along with five other women.

On the day of her death, Eliza, seriously ill and aware of her fate, requested a priest. Being an Irish Catholic, she wanted to receive the sacraments. The priest refused to attend her.

Upon her death the Reverend Calvin Butler Hulbert agreed to bury her in the cemetery on Ainslie Street - but declined to read the full rites. Though the local press supported his decision, it caused unrest in the community. Complaints were made to the diocese, including one from a member of the dissenter’s chapel that stood in the old cemetery. Despite the portrayal of Eliza as a woman without moral merit, the people who knew her - who lived alongside her - clearly thought she deserved better.

Daniel Hill himself wrote to the Lincolnshire Chronicle to challenge the claims about the events in the house after Eliza’s death. He asserted that he had ‘respectable neighbours’ who could vouch for him. It’s likely that someone helped him pen the letter, as Daniel was illiterate and signed official documents with an ‘X.’ The editor, rather cruelly, printed the letter ‘verbatim et literatim’ and dismissed Daniel’s plea, noting that no neighbour of Hill’s could be considered respectable. Ironically, that same standard wasn’t applied to the source who supplied the story of Eliza’s death and the ritual that allegedly followed.

The defence for the Reverend’s refusal to perform the full rite hinged not upon Eliza’s work as a sex worker, but on her alleged adultery. And yet, Daniel financially benefited from her labour, acting, in effect, as her pimp. In fact, soon after Eliza’s death, he quickly moved on, taking up with an even younger ‘wife’ named Elizabeth, who also worked from his brothel. Again, no marriage certificate exists.

Daniel Hill’s own death came in 1880. Visiting his nephew’s home, he went upstairs and never came back down for breakfast. He was found naked in the bedroom chair appearing to look out of the window. He died of 'softening of the brain' (dementia) - caused by Syphillis.

Unlike Eliza he received a full funeral.