Louisa Southwell was born on 13 October 1834 and baptised at St John the Evangelist, Westminster on 26 October of the same year. On 12 April 1859 she married Alfred Robins, a Manchester warehouseman and brother of Edward Cookworthy Robins who would in turn marry her sister Elizabeth later in the same year. William Henry Southwell was a witness at the wedding. Edward’s sister, Jane [Robins] Cook, relates in her diary, written many years later¹, that ‘she [Louisa] of the seven sisters possessed the most striking personality, being fair with dark eyes and brows, an aquiline nose, large mouth and the curved upper lip’. Jane tells the reader that Louisa loved power and argument and had ‘a reckless vigour of speech’ and passionately espoused Socialism – echoes here of the characteristics of her Uncle Charles.

Louisa gave birth to twins in 1860, a son and daughter, but only the girl, Mary, said by Jane Cook to have been nick-named Poppy, survived, a frail child who suffered from epilepsy. By 1861 the family had moved to Stockport in Cheshire, to be found listed there in the census of that year. They later moved to London where their daughter was cared for by Edward and Elizabeth Cookworthy Robins (her aunt and uncle) – becoming a companion for their only daughter, Ida. According to Jane Cook’s account, at this time Louisa went to Paris to join her brother Edwin and while there made the acquaintance of French writers and Socialists, with whom she remained closely associated for the rest of her life. Later she accompanied Alfred to Italy, eventually settling in Carrara, where Alfred became Manager of the Marble Works. During this time their daughter Mary died in a care establishment in England.

A death notice for Louisa's youngest brother Edwin in The Times on 22 June 1882 notes that he died at Louisa’s home in Carrara. Interestingly, Cook notes that he had been taken there at Louisa’s insistence, after losing his reason and having being placed in a asylum in England. He died shortly after arriving in Italy. Problems in the marriage caused Alfred’s return to London, while Louisa remained in Italy giving language lessons for a living, until her death from gout in 1904. She was buried alongside Edwin in Carrara. The 1901 English census lists Alfred at 1 The Avenue, Blackheath (occupation Foreign Correspondent) with his niece Ethel Rogerson, a dressmaker. Ethel was the daughter of Louisa's sister, Sophia [Southwel] Rogerson. Alfred's short will, dated 1813, after his death as a pensioner in Charterhouse, London, names her as his sole beneficiary.

¹ The diary of Jane Cook, née Robins, a sister-in-law of both Elizabeth and Louisa Southwell, daughters of William Southwell junior and wives of Edward Cookworthy Robins (architect) and Alfred Robins respectively. Particular thanks to David Cripps of Tasmania for his tenacious work in locating and obtaining a research copy of this document.

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