SMELT, Ellen Casterton
Ellen Casterton Smelt was born at Wilcot Vicarage, Warminster, Wiltshire in December 1865 and baptised at St Denis Church, Wilcot on 11 January 1866, youngest of the six children of Revd Henry Smelt (1826-25 June 1905), vicar of Wilcot, and his wife Maria Casterton (15 May 1821-27 December 1893), youngest daughter of James Casterton, of the stock exchange, who married at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Upper Chelsea on 1 June 1854. In 1871, Ellen was a 5-year-old, living at Wilcot Vicarage with her parents, 45-year-old Henry and 49-year-old Maria with five siblings, Ada Maria 15, Susie Hannah 14, Mary Rowena Elizabeth 11, William Maurice 9, and Charles Allen 8, all with the last christian name of Casterton and all born at Wilcot. Ellen's mother died at Wilcot in 1893, aged 70, and in 1900, 74-year-old Henry took a new wife, 32-year-old Mary Elizabeth Ratcliffe (c1868-20 July 1958). In 1901 Ellen was living with an 81 year old uncle, Revd Maurice Smelt and his wife at Heath Lodge, Pittville Circus, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. A member of the Ipswich Art Club 1896-1897 and exhibited from 21 High Street, Ipswich in 1895, nine works 'Westminster Abbey', 'Venice Fishing Boats, Evening', 'Venice, San Giorgio, Evening', 'Torghatten and Bergen', 'Norway, Midnight Sun', a pair 'Thun, Switzerland' and 'Old Castle and Church', 'Stranvanger and Erde' and 'Fjord in the Actic Circle', her work Westminster Abbey was exhibited again in 1896 (item 139), but she does not seem to have exhibited again. Ellen married in the Bosmere district of Suffolk in 1902, Claude Mends Gibson Girling (1861-23 January 1937) and Ellen Casterton Girling died at Seacroft, Combe Martin, Gloucestershire on 19 April the following year, aged 37. Her husband married secondly at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire in 1904, Edith Helen Hands and in 1911 was living on 'private means' at Bourton-on-Water, Gloucestershire and died in 1937.