1. Jane Williams was a British woman best known for her association with the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
29 Facts About Jane Williams
1. 2.
Jane Williams soon left him for another military officer, Edward Ellerker Williams.
3.
Jane Williams was born in Marylebone into a wealthy family who owned an extensive library.
4.
Jane Williams's mother gave birth to her when she was close to forty years old.
5.
Jane Williams spent much of her early life around military officers.
6.
Jane Williams's brother, John Wheeler Cleveland, was an officer in the British Army who eventually reached the rank of general.
7.
Jane Williams was deployed to India as a young man.
8.
Jane Williams later said that she suffered "irreparable injuries" while married to him.
9.
Jane Williams was an Eton College graduate who had served in the Navy before becoming a lieutenant in the 8th Dragoons.
10.
Jane Williams was particularly taken by her musical gifts and skill as a housewife.
11.
Jane Williams was successful in her attempts to prevent Edward from suspecting infidelity on her part.
12.
Jane Williams served as the primary inspiration for the last poems that he wrote before his death.
13.
Shelley was particularly captivated by Jane Williams's singing voice, to the extent that some commentators have suggested it had a hypnotic effect on him.
14.
Shelley once purchased a guitar for Jane Williams, and commemorated the gift in the poem "With a Guitar, to Jane Williams".
15.
Jane Williams kept the guitar for her entire life and played it often.
16.
Jane Williams later passed on the poems that Shelley had given her to Thomas Medwin and Edward John Trelawny; Trelawny later published them.
17.
Shortly before their deaths, Jane Williams dreamed of floods and on one occasion thought that she had seen Shelley's ghost through a window.
18.
Mary Shelley and Jane Williams briefly settled in Albaro, before proceeding to Genoa together.
19.
When Edward's stepmother learned that Jane Williams had returned, she unsuccessfully attempted to gain control of Edward's ashes and their children.
20.
In March 1823, Jane Williams moved out of her mother's home into a home of her own due to renovations at her mother's house.
21.
Jane Williams was initially hesitant to pursue a relationship with Hogg, however.
22.
Jane Williams left England in August 1825 and returned nine months later.
23.
Jane Williams moved into his house in April 1827, and shortly after became pregnant.
24.
In November 1827, Jane Williams gave birth to Mary Prudentia Hogg after a difficult pregnancy.
25.
Jane Williams was mistaken as to the identity of her lover and attempted to blackmail James Hogg, a Member of Parliament for Beverly.
26.
Jane Williams sent Jane Rosalind to live with her old friend Claire Clairmont in France in an attempt to thwart the match.
27.
Jane Williams then relented and allowed them to marry, which they did in 1842.
28.
Jane Williams enjoyed living in London, she visited with friends and often gardened with her husband in his later years.
29.
Jane Williams lived a long life, and in her later years often wrote on census forms that she was born later than she actually was.