Elizabeth Penrose

Mrs Markham, the pseudonym of Elizabeth Penrose was an English writer.

She was the daughter of Edmund Cartwright, the inventor of the power loom. She was born at her father's rectory at Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire. In 1814, she married Reverend John Penrose, a country clergyman in Lincolnshire and a voluminous theological writer. During her girlhood, Mrs Penrose had frequently stayed with close relatives and guardians, the Misses Cartwright, at Mirfield Hall, Markham, a village in Nottinghamshire, and from this place she took the nom de plume of "Mrs Markham", under which she gained celebrity as a writer of history and other books for the young.

The best known of her books was A History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the End of the Reign of George III (1823), which went through numerous editions. In 1828, she published a History of France. Both these works enjoyed a wide popularity in America as well as in England. The distinctive characteristic of Mrs Markham's histories was the elimination of all the "horrors" of history, and of the complications of party politics, as being unsuitable for the youthful mind; and the addition to each chapter of "Conversations" between a fictitious group consisting of teacher and pupils bearing upon the subject matter.

Her less well-known works were Amusements of Westernheath, or Moral Stories for Children (2 volumes, 1824); A Visit to the Zoological Gardens (1829); two volumes of stories entitled The New Children's Friend (1832); Historical Conversations for Young People (1836); Sermons for Children (1837).

Mrs Markham had three sons and died at Lincoln on 24 January 1837 and was buried in Lincoln Minster. There is a stained glass window to her memory in East Markham Church.

• Burke, Bernard, Sir. A genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Great Britain & Ireland 6th ed. London : Harrison 1879. Vol. I. page 279
• Wikipedia contributors. "Mrs Markham." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.