Editing Elizabeth Gaskell (section)

==Early life==
She was born Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson on 29 September 1810 in Lindsey Row, [[Chelsea, London]], now 93 [[Cheyne Walk]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://gaskellsociety.co.uk/elizabeth-gaskell/|title=Elizabeth Gaskell Biography - The Gaskell Society|website=Gaskellsociety.co.uk|access-date=9 December 2017}}</ref> The doctor who delivered her was [[Anthony Todd Thomson]], whose sister Catherine later became Gaskell's stepmother.<ref>{{Cite ODNB |last=Uglow |first=Jenny |author-link=Jenny Uglow |title=Gaskell [née Stevenson], Elizabeth Cleghorn |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/10434}}</ref> She was the youngest of eight children; only she and her brother John survived infancy. Her father, [[William Stevenson (Scottish writer)|William Stevenson]], a [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] from [[Berwick-upon-Tweed]], was minister at [[Failsworth]], Lancashire, but resigned his orders on conscientious grounds. He moved to London in 1806 on the understanding that he would be appointed [[private secretary]] to [[James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale]], who was to become [[Governor General of India]].  That position did not materialise, however, and Stevenson was nominated Keeper of the Treasury Records.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

His wife, Elizabeth Holland, came from a family established in Lancashire and Cheshire that was connected with other prominent Unitarian families, including the [[Wedgwood]]s, the [[Martineau family|Martineaus]], the [[William Turner (Unitarian minister)|Turners]] and the [[Darwin–Wedgwood family|Darwins]]. When she died 13 months after giving birth to Gaskell,<ref name="Chronology">{{cite book |title=The Cambridge Companion to Elizabeth Gaskell; Chronology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TjZjIpq6TwoC|last=Weyant |first=Nancy S. |year=2007 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-60926-5 |pages=xi–xx }}<!--|access-date=29 February 2012--></ref> her husband sent the baby to live with Elizabeth's sister, Hannah Lumb, in [[Knutsford]], Cheshire.<ref>{{cite book |title=Mrs. Gaskell: Novelist and Biographer |url=https://archive.org/details/mrsgaskellnoveli0000poll |url-access=registration |last=Pollard |first=Arthur |year=1965 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=0-674-57750-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/mrsgaskellnoveli0000poll/page/12 12] }}</ref> 

Her father remarried to Catherine Thomson, in 1814. They had a son, William, in 1815, and a daughter, Catherine, in 1816. Although Elizabeth spent several years without seeing her father, to whom she was devoted, her older brother John often visited her in Knutsford. John was destined for the [[Royal Navy]] from an early age, like his grandfathers and uncles, but he did not obtain preferment into the Service and had to join the [[British Merchant Navy|Merchant Navy]] with the [[English East India Company|East India Company]]'s fleet.<ref>{{cite book |title=Elizabeth Gaskell |last=Gérin |first=Winifred |year=1976 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-281296-3 |pages=10–17 }}</ref> John went missing in 1827 during an expedition to India.<ref>{{Cite ODNB |title=Gaskell [née Stevenson], Elizabeth Cleghorn (1810–1865), novelist and short-story writer |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-10434 |access-date=2024-01-22 |date=2004 |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/10434}}</ref>