Caroline Bray
{{Short description|British writer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2016}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2016}}
Caroline Bray, known as Cara Bray, née Hennell (4 June 1814 – 21 February 1905) was a British writer of children's stories and school textbooks.{{ODNBweb|id=32048|title=Bray
Life
Hennell was born in 1814. She was a daughter of the Unitarian family of James and Elizabeth Hennell (born Marshall). Her mother had been born in Loughborough in the East Midlands in 1778 and had the maiden name of Marshall. Her father was born in 1778 and he had become a partner in the Manchester merchants of Fazy & Co. Cara's eldest sister was Mary and another sister was Sara Hennell. The sisters are considered to be the basis for the fictional Meyrick family in George Eliot's 1876 novel Daniel Deronda.{{cite book|last1=Blind|first1=Mathilde|title=George Eliot|date=1883|page=28|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36847/36847-h/36847-h.htm|access-date=24 January 2015}}
In 1836, Hennell married Charles Bray. Caroline's uncle, Samuel Hennell, manufactured ribbons in Coventry as did the family of Charles Bray.{{cite book|last1=Henry|first1=Nancy|title=The Life of George Eliot: A Critical Biography|date=2012|isbn=978-1118274675|page=contents|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gaYmuxerq-sC&q="Bray,+Charles"|access-date=24 January 2015}} After her marriage to Bray, an enthusiastic skeptic, her brother Charles Hennell reviewed the evidences for Christian beliefs with the aim of parrying his brother-in-law's arguments. The result of the examination was that he became a sceptic himself, and in 1838 published an Enquiry concerning the Origin of Christianity in defence of his conclusions.{{cite web|title=George Eliot (1902)|url=http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/criticism/stephenl_geliot/geliot_ch2.html|publisher=UTEL|access-date=17 October 2013}} In 1841 Charles Bray published The Philosophy of Necessity and this included as an appendix written by her sister Mary.J. M. Scott, ‘Hennell, Mary (1802–1843)’, rev. C. A. Creffield, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12940, accessed 24 January 2015]
Cara Bray was a good friend to George Eliot and the National Portrait Gallery contains portraits of George Eliot and her father which are watercolours by Bray.[http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw01623/George-Eliot-Mary-Ann-Cross-ne-Evans?LinkID=mp01124&role=sit&rNo=1 George Eliot (Mary Ann Cross (née Evans))], National Portrait Gallery
Bray wrote several books and text books for children including Physiology for Common Schools which explained the human body and its care to school children. She was also an active supporter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Coventry. Cara Bray died in Coventry and was buried there in 1905.Rosemary Ashton, ‘Bray , Caroline (1814–1905)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32048, accessed 24 January 2015]
Works
- Physiology for Common Schools, 1860
- Our Duty to Animals, 1871
- Richard Barton; or, The Wounded Bird, 1873
- Paul Bradley. A village tale inculcating kindness to animals, 1876
- Little Mop and other stories, 1886
- Branded: or the sins of the Fathers shall be visited on the children, 1888
References
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Category:British children's writers
Category:British women children's writers
Category:British textbook writers
Category:Women textbook writers
Category:19th-century British writers