Introduction

Biography

Charlotte was the grand­daugh­ter of Hen­ry Venn, min­is­ter at Huddersfield, West York­shire, and au­thor of The Com­plete Du­ty of a Man, and friend and com­pan­ion of John Wes­ley.

Eling, a daugh­ter of Mr. Venn, marr­ied Charles El­lio­tt of Brigh­ton, and Char­lotte was the third of their six child­ren.

Two of her bro­thers be­came cler­gy­men, two of her sis­ters died young, and she lost her fa­ther in 1833. Up­on the death of her mo­ther in 1843, her home was brok­en up, and short­ly af­ter she and her on­ly sur­viv­ing sis­ter went to the con­ti­nent.

Finally they set­tled in Tor­quay, Eng­land, and lived there 14 years. Af­ter that, she re­turned to Brigh­ton, which she ne­ver again left ex­cept once for a short time. Char­lotte be­came an in­va­lid around age 30, and re­mained so the rest of her life. About her phy­si­cal con­di­tion, she wrote:

My Hea­ven­ly Fa­ther knows, and He alone, what it is, day af­ter day, and hour af­ter hour, to fight against bo­di­ly feel­ings of al­most over­pow­er­ing weak­ness and lan­guor and ex­haus­tion, to re­solve, as He en­a­bles me to do, not to yield to the sloth­ful­ness, the dep­res­sion, the ir­ri­ta­bil­i­ty, such as a bo­dy caus­es me to long to in­dulge, but to rise ev­ery morn­ing de­ter­mined on tak­ing this for my mot­to, If any man will come af­ter Me, let him de­ny him­self, take up his cross dai­ly, and fol­low Me.

Elliott had an on­go­ing spi­rit­ual cor­res­pon­dence with Cé­sar Ma­lan, and wrote about 150 hymns.

Works

• The In­va­lid’s Hymn Book, 1834
• Psalms and Hymns for Pub­lic, Pri­vate, and So­cial Wor­ship, 1835–48; ed­it­ed by her bro­ther Hen­ry
• Hours of Sor­row, 1836
• Hymns for a Week, 1839
• Thoughts in Verse on Sac­red Sub­jects, 1869