Anna Eliza Bray
English writer (1790–1883)
Anna Eliza Bray (born Kempe, afterwards Stothard; 25 December 1790 – 21 January 1883) was an English historical novelist. She also wrote several non-fiction works.
Biography
Anna Eliza Kempe was born in the parish of Newington, Surrey on 25 December 1790, to John Kempe, a bullion porter in the Royal Mint, and Ann, daughter of James Arrow of Westminster. Kempe planned to be an actress, and her public appearance at the Bath Theatre was duly announced for 27 May 1815. However, she caught a severe cold on her journey, which prevented her appearance, and the opportunity was lost. In February 1818, she married Charles Alfred Stothard, son of the noted painter Thomas Stothard R. A. They travelled to France, and her first work consisted of Letters written during a Tour in Normandy, Brittany, &c., in 1818.
As an artist, her husband was devoted to illustrating the funerary monuments of Great Britain, but on 28 May 1821 he fell off a ladder and died in St Andrew's Church, Bere Ferrers, Devon, while collecting materials for his work The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain. She had one child by him, a daughter (born 29 June 1821, died 2 February 1822). In 1823 she produced a memoir of her late husband and undertook to complete the book he had left unfinished, with the aid of her brother Alfred John Kempe. She eventually did so and the work appeared in 1832.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4766979. VIAF identifies the subject as 29710913. The Library of Congress control number is nr90005284. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1790, 1883, 1815 and 1818.
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This entry incorporates text from “Anna Eliza Bray” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.