Eliza Cook's Trip to Sark
30th May 2025
From Eliza Cook's Journal, Saturday, August 19, 1854. Eliza Cook was born in Southwark in 1818 as one of eleven children to a tinsmith. She began her career in poetry at a very young age, and had much success, her poems being published in newspapers and proving especially popular as songs when set to music. She was a Chartist, and her poems often deal with the "levelling-up" of the poor. From 1849-1854 she wrote, edited and published Eliza Cook's Journal for, she said, 'utility and amusement'. Despite her popularity, she is now largely overlooked. The portrait is by Henry Brittan Willis, after John Watkins:lithograph, 1840s-1850s, (c) National Portrait Gallery, NPG D34087