Mrs Idonea Thomas
(1812-1894)
31 March 1862

Volume 6, page 48, sitting number 7468.

[The sitter is identified in the Silvy daybooks as ‘Mrs Thomas.’ On the album page she was identified as ‘Mrs Thomas’ below the portrait and as ‘Idonea’ above.]

Born in 1812, Elizabeth Idonea Taylor was the daughter of the Rev. Robert Taylor and his wife Mary Ann née Watkins.

She was baptised on 27 December 1812 at Clifton Campville in Staffordshire. 

On 27 September 1836 she married Lt. Colonel Henry Thomas. 

‘At Clifton Campville, Staffordshire, Henry Thomas, of Old Derrig, Queen’s County, Esq., Lieutenant-Colonel, 20th Regt., CB, and MP of Kinsale, to Elizabeth Idonea, eldest daughter of the Rev. R. Taylor, Rector of Clifton’ (Derby Mercury, 5 October 1836). 

She appears on the 1861 census, a 38-year-old widow visiting Mary Chapman and her family on the edge of Tooting Common. 

Elizabeth Idonea Thomas died on 31 December 1894 at Belmont, Co. Carlow, Ireland. She left an estate valued at £3572. The executor was her son Jocelyn Henry Watkins Thomas. 

‘THOMAS — December 31, at Belmont, Carlow, Elizabeth Idonea, widow of Lieutenant-General Henry Thomas, CB, and eldest daughter of the late Rev. Robert Taylor, of Clifton Campville, Staffordshire, aged 82 years’ (Dublin Daily Express, 2 January 1895). 

[From an Anglo-Irish album probably compiled by Elizabeth Alexander-Shaw, daughter of William John Alexander-Shaw.]