William Gaskell

EG wrote Mary Barton following the death of her ten-month-old son in 1845. Johann Ludwig Uhland 's Auf der Überfahrt, from which she takes one of her epigraphs, refers to two from the spirit-land...

While on holiday in Wales, EG 's children Marianne and Willie became ill with scarlet fever; Willie, her only surviving son, died on 10 August.

After the birth of Florence, her third surviving daughter, EG had a son, apparently unnamed, who died as a baby. Her only son to survive long was William , who was born on 23 October 1844.