Friends
Of
Hastings
Cemetery
CE B08
Marianne Caroline Patmore (Second wife of Coventry Patmore, Poet and Critic)
Marianne shares the grave at Hastings cemetery with her stepson Henry John Patmore, the son of Coventry and his first wife Emily.
Henry John, also a poet died in 1883.
The grave is marked by a very large slab and the inscription is at the top indicating perhaps that Coventry and other members of the family were expected to be laid to rest there at a later date.
Marianne (sometimes shown as Mary) was said to be a good and kind wife to Coventry’s children from his first marriage to Emily, with whom he is said to have honeymooned in Hastings in 1847.
Marianne Byles, who became Coventry Patmore’s second wife, was born on 23rd June 1822 in Gloucestershire.
She met Patmore in Rome in 1864; it was not long before Patmore proposed, but Marianne refused to marry him because he was not Catholic (she herself had converted to Catholicism). He was prompted to convert and a marriage was arranged.