Emily Elizabeth Beavan

1818-1897

Emily Elizabeth (Shaw) Beavan was born c. 1818 in Belfast, Ireland, and died in Sydney, Australia, on 6 August 1897.  She arrived in Saint John sometime around 1836. She was granted her teacher’s license on 18 September 1837 in Sussex, Kings County. She married Frederick William Cadwallader Beavan 19 June 1838 . The couple settled in Long Creek, New Brunswick and finding their plot insufficient for farming, the Beavans purchased a lot of two hundred acres two miles away in English Settlement, Mount Auburn. It was around this time that Emily began writing. She contributed at least nine tales and six poems to New Brunswick’s first quasi-literary magazine, Robert Shives’ Amaranth. She signed her early contributions as Mrs. B–N but would later sign her poems as “Emily”.  The Beavans left their life as New Brunswick pioneers and returned to England in 1843.  There she published her first book, Sketches and Tales Illustrative of Life in the Backwoods of New Brunswick, North America, Gleaned From Actual Observation and Experience During a Residence of Seven Years in That Interesting Colony (published by George Routledge in 1845). Beavan’s book was republished in 1980 as Life in the Backwoods of New Brunswick by Print ’n Press Publications in St. Stephen, New Brunswick. On 29 June 1852, the Beavans arrived in Australia, where they eventually settled in Kilmore. After being widowed in the summer of 1867, Emily moved in 1881 to Sydney, Australia. She continued to write, contributing to Eliza Cook’s Journal and publishing poems in her local papers. It appears that she also had several other books published by J.W. Partridge & Co. in London. Emily Beavan died on 6 August 1897 in Surrey Hills, Sydney.

Predominant New Brunswick Residences:

English Settlement, Long Creek

Archival Material