Elizabeth Gay

Elizabeth Gay (1715-44) of Haycombe, was the daughter of Jane Gay. She was Anne Steele’s cousin and sister to Anna Gay Attwater (1710-84), mother of Jane and Marianna Attwater of Bodenham. Elizabeth Gay also attended Mrs. Hurn’s boarding school with Anne Steele. Elizabeth’s father was John Gay (1666-1729) and her eldest brother was Richard (d. 1736). Her mother, Jane Cator Gay (1680-1756), was Anne Cator Steele’s sister. Elizabeth married Thomas Phipps, Esq., of Westbury Leigh, near Bratton, in 1743; she suffered a miscarriage and died the following year. Another sister, Jane (Jenny) (d. 1763), married Philip James Gibbs of Trowbridge c. 1750. Marjorie Reeves discusses a set of 15 letters, dated between 1735 and 1742, that passed between Eliza Gay of Haycombe and her sister, Anna Attwater at Britford and later (after 1742) at Bodenham, in Pursuing the Muses: Female Education and Nonconformist Culture 1700-1900 (London: Leicester University Press, 1997), 10-15; see also John Broome, A Bruised Reed: The Life and Times of Anne Steele. (Harpenden: Gospel Standard Trust Publications, 2007), 70-71, 123; and Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, vol. 2, ed. Julia B. Griffin.