Elizabeth Spurway Hayne

Elizabeth Spurway Hayne, Eliza Gould Flower’s aunt, moved to Tiverton in the late 1780s from Bampton, where she had been a member of the Baptist church there since 1753 (Records ff.207-08). The details of her life are not entirely clear. She may have been married to the Rev. Roger Hayne of Tiverton, who subscribed to Dunsford’s Historical Memoirs in 1790. References in the Flower Correspondence seem to suggest that Mr. Hayne died in the early 1790s. Mrs. Hayne may opened a boarding school for girls at that time, which would explain a later reference in the above letter to Miss Raddon having “boarded once” at her home.  Raddon may have been boarding there in 1790, for that same year she also subscribed to Dunsford’s book.  Mrs. Hayne joined the Baptist congregation at Tiverton on 5 April 1789, her name remaining on the membership rolls through 1802 (Tiverton); however, Mr. Hayne does not appear in the church records, which would also corrobor­ate his having been deceased. Her daughter, Mary, married Joseph Armitage of Tiverton on 9 July 1801, having been listed in the St. Peter’s Marriage Registers as a “spinster.” On 29 August 1801, Benjamin Flower inserted a notice of her marriage in the Intelligencer; and in July 1806, during Eliza’s visit to Devon, she was among Eliza’s traveling companions from Tiverton to Plymouth.