Charlotte Stoker

Charlotte Stoker
Born
Charlotte Matilda Blake Thornley

1818 (1818)
Sligo, Ireland
Died15 March 1901(1901-03-15) (aged 82–83)
Rathmines, Dublin, Ireland
Burial placeSt. Michan's Church, Dublin, Ireland
Children7 including,
RelativesFlorence Stoker (daughter-in-law)
William Thomson (son-in-law)

Charlotte Matilda Blake Thornley Stoker (née Thornley; 1818 – 15 March 1901) was an Irish charity worker, social reformer and writer, best known for being the mother of author Bram Stoker.[1][2][3]

Early life

Charlotte Matilda Blake Thornley was born in 1818 in Sligo, Ireland, to Captain Thomas Thornley, a former soldier and member of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and Matilda Thornley (née Blake).[1][4] Stoker's father was Anglo-Irish and her mother was Irish.[1][4] Stoker was the eldest of three siblings.[4]

1832 Sligo cholera outbreak

Stoker lived in Sligo during the 1832 Sligo cholera outbreak. Two weeks into the epidemic, they fled to stay with relatives in Ballyshannon, returning when the epidemic resolved. When her family escaped, it impacted the rest of her life. In 1873, she recorded her experiences in Experiences of the Cholera in Ireland.[1] Bram Stoker incorporated some of her stories about the epidemic into his literature, such as "The Invisible Giant" in Under the Sunset.[5] Marion McGarry posites that her description of the epidemic also inspired Dracula.[1][6]

Career

When her youngest child, George, turned eight, Stoker began her activist work for women, the poor, and the disabled.[4] She belonged to the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland.[5] Seeing the harsh workhouse conditions and speaking with women who wanted to be more than servants in poor households, she reported her findings to Dublin newspapers.[6] She recommended that women in workhouses be taught cooking and framework so they could emigrate to English colonies, to "new countries [where] there is a dignity in labour, and a self-supporting woman is alike respected and respectable."[6]

In May 1863, Stoker supported the establishment of state schools for deaf-mute children. Her speech supporting the school was heard by William Wilde.[4]

Personal life

In 1844, Thornely married Abraham Stoker (1799–1876), a senior civil servant.[2][7] Together they had 7 children:[8]

  • Sir William Thornley Stoker, 1st Baronet (1845–1912) medical writer, anatomist and surgeon; married Emily Eunice Stoker (née Cowderoy; 1841–1910) [2][9][10][11]
  • Matilda Stoker Petitjean (née Stoker; c. 1846–c. 1920); married Charles Auguste Petitjean [3][12]
  • Abraham 'Bram' Stoker (1847–1912) writer, barrister and theatre manager; married Florence Stoker (née Balcombe; 1858–1937) [13][14][15]
  • Thomas Stoker (1849–1925) civil servant in the Indian Civil Service; married Enid Stoker (née Bruce)[2][16]
  • Richard Nugent Stoker (1851–1931) military surgeon; married Susan Harden
  • Dame Margaret Dalrymple Thomson (née Stoker; died 1928); married Sir William David Thomson, CB, F.R.C.S (1843–1909) surgeon and medical writer
  • George Stoker [3] (1854–1920) military surgeon; married Agnes McGillycuddy Stoker

The Stoker family lived in Dublin, later moving to Clontarf.[1][17][4] Charlotte, though untutored, provided their early education.[4] Charlotte and Abraham had taken on considerable debt due to educating their sons.[18] To survive on Abraham's pension more comfortably, they moved, with their two daughters, to France in 1872.[19][18] They later moved to Italy, where Abraham died.[18]

In 1885, Stoker returned to Dublin, where many of her children lived. At the end of her life, as Charlotte's eyesight failed, she feared going blind and hoped to die first.[4]

Stoker died on 15 March 1901, in Rathmines, Dublin, Ireland, from influenza.[20] She was either buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery or Saint Michan's.[4][21]

Publications

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g McGarry, Marion (November 2022). "Dracula as Cholera: The Influences of Sligo's Cholera Epidemic of 1832 on Bram Stoker's Novel Dracula (1897)". Journal of Medical Humanities. 44 (1): 27–41. doi:10.1007/s10912-022-09763-0. ISSN 1041-3545.
  2. ^ a b c d Doyle, Carmel (2009). "Stoker, Sir (William) Thornley". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. Retrieved 14 December 2025.
  3. ^ a b c "Stoker's mother 'very ahead of her time'". Irish Independent. Dublin: Mediahuis Ireland. 25 April 2012. Retrieved 14 December 2025.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Belford, Barbara (1996). Bram Stoker : a biography of the author of Dracula. Internet Archive. New York : Knopf : Distributed by Random House. ISBN 978-0-679-41832-0.
  5. ^ a b Foskolou, Iosifina; Jones, Martin, eds. (30 June 2022). "Dracula, Blood, and the New Woman: Stoker's Reflections on the Zeitgeist". Blood (1 ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781009205528. ISBN 978-1-009-20552-8.
  6. ^ a b c Senf, Carol A. (1982). ""Dracula": Stoker's Response to the New Woman". Victorian Studies. 26 (1): 33–49. ISSN 0042-5222. JSTOR 3827492.
  7. ^ "Abraham Stoker and Charlotte Matilda Blake Thornley [Marriage Index]". Indexes of Wills, Administration and Marriage Licence Bonds. Marriage Licenses, Down, Connor, Dromore, Dublin Dioceses: 1672-1845. Dublin: National Archives of Ireland. 1844.
  8. ^ "Papers of the Stoker family". Trinity College Library Dublin; Manuscripts and Archives. Trinity College Dublin. 1688. Retrieved 27 December 2025.
  9. ^ "Obituary: Sir William Thornley Stoker, BART., M.D". The BMJ. London: British Medical Association: 1399–1400. 15 June 1912. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.2685.1399. Retrieved 14 December 2025.
  10. ^ "Emily Stoker [Birth Index]". England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes. 1 (Q1). London: General Register Office: 216. 1841.
  11. ^ "Emily Stoker [Death Index]". Ireland, Civil Registration Indexes 1845–1958. 2 (Q4): 434. 1910.
  12. ^ "Mathilde Stoker and Charles-Auguste Petitjean [Marriage Bann]", Publications des Bans de Mariages 1860-1930 (in French), Paris: Archives de Paris, 17 February 1889
  13. ^ Murray, Paul (2009). "Stoker, Abraham ('Bram')". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. doi:10.3318/dib.008322.v1. Retrieved 17 December 2025.
  14. ^ "Florence Anne Lemon Balcombe [Birth Index]", England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes, 5c, London: General Register Office: 208, 1858
  15. ^ "Florence Anne Lemon Stoker", Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration Made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England, London: Principal Probate Registry, 1937
  16. ^ "MARRIAGES: STOKER-BRUCE". The Belfast News-Letter. Vol. CLIV, no. 23719. 13 July 1891.
  17. ^ Bierman, Joseph S. (1972). "Dracula: Prolonged Childhood Illness, and the Oral Triad". American Imago. 29 (2): 186–198. ISSN 0065-860X. JSTOR 26302690.
  18. ^ a b c Roth, Phyllis A. "Bram Stoker: The Life." Bram Stoker, Twayne Publishers, 1982, pp. 1-21. Twayne's English Authors Series 343. Gale eBooks.
  19. ^ Gallagher, Sharon M. (2017). The Irish vampire: from folklore to the imaginations of Charles Robert Maturin, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4766-6580-1.
  20. ^ "Charlotte Stoker Death Record". Irish Genealogy. 25 March 1901. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
  21. ^ "Charlotte Matilda Blake Thornley | Bram Stoker Estate". bramstokerestate. Retrieved 1 July 2024.
  22. ^ Wainwright, Michael (2009). "Female Suffrage in Ireland: James Joyce's Realization of Unrealized Potential". Criticism. 51 (4): 651–682. doi:10.1353/crt.2010.0005. JSTOR 23131535. Retrieved 27 December 2025.
  23. ^ "On Female Emigration from Workhouses". Women on the Move (WEMov). Amiens, France: Université de Picardie Jules Verne. Retrieved 27 December 2025.
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Stoker