Frances Kingsley

Frances "Fanny" Kingsley born Frances Eliza Grenfell (1814 – 12 December 1891) was a British biographer of her husband Charles Kingsley. Life Kingsley was born in Taplow House near Maidenhead. Her father was the businessman and politician Pascoe Grenfell. Her mother, Pascoe's second wife, was the Honourable Georgiana St Leger, daughter of St Leger St Leger, 1st Viscount Doneraile. Frances was born into a large family that included six elder sisters. Her mother died when she was a child in 1818 and like her sisters she was educated at home. Her eldest brother Pascoe St Leger Grenfell continued her father's business in Swansea and helped found South Australia and his son, Francis Wallace Grenfell, was a Field Marshall. When she was in her twenties the idea of entering a religious sisterhood was discussed between herself and three of her sisters. All four of them had been educated at home. Frances was well-read and they all had a religious Catholic interest which followed the Oxford Movement. Her father had died in 1838 and her half brother became head of the family. The four of them were attracted by a movement to reestablish nuns within the Anglican denomination. Frances abandoned these thoughts after she met Charles Kingsley on 6 July 1839. She was six years younger than him and her half-brother, Charles and her family, did not approve of this unconventional Oxford undergraduate. She married Charles in the town of Bath on 10 January 1844 although she thought that they were married spiritually in 1839. Although she encouraged Charles to enter the church it is clear from their letters that celibacy was not a high priority.