Charlotte Stoker

Charlotte Matilda Blake Stoker (1818–1901), also known as Charlotte Matilda Blake Thornley, was a woman from Ireland. She recorded stories and helped those in need. Her story of Sligo in 1832 when people became unhealthy and died from cholera and the terrible events that followed helped her son Bram Stoker write Dracula and other books.

Charlotte Stoker

Biography

Early life

Stoker was born in 1818 in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland. Stoker's father was Thomas Thornley who was a captain in the 43rd Light Infantry of the British Army. Thornley later joined the Royal Irish Constabulary. Thornley's family came from England and moved to Ballyshannon in the 1780s. Stoker's mother was Matilda Blake. The Blake family had a long history in Galway with Richard Blake (Caddell) being Sheriff of Connaught from 1305 and others being mayors of Galway.

Stoker was to have two younger brothers and the family was to move to Sligo Town while Stoker was still young.

Cholera outbreak

Cholera is an infectious disease (like flu or Covid) that makes people very unhealthy and may make them die. In 1832 cholera spread through many countries in the world. After a while cholera reached Sligo Town where Stoker lived. Cholera was very bad in Sligo. No other town in Ireland or Great Britain had it worse. Many caring for those who lost their health from cholera were also to catch and die from cholera. People were very worried and behaved very bad. For example they put people in graves before they were dead. Stoker, who was a 14 year-old child, seen and remembered all their bad things. Her family were in fear and went to Ballyshannon (some 40 kilometres (25 mi) by road to the north) where they had other family. But the people of Ballyshannon were in fear that the Stoker family might have caught cholera and told them to go away.

Marriage

Stoker married in 1844. She met her husband-to-be Abraham in Coleraine, County Londonderry, while he was on holiday from his job at Dublin Castle. He was about 20 years older than her. His ancestors had come to Ireland with William of Orange and had made living by farming land they owned themselves. Once married they moved to Harcourt Street in Dublin before moving to The Crescent in Clontarf. They had seven children: Thornley, Matilda, Abraham (Bram), Tom, Richard, Margaret, and finally George was born in 1855. Bram was not a healthy child and had to stay in bed until he was seven years old. While Stoker taught all of the children at home Bram needed additional attention. Eventually all Stoker's sons were to be taught at Trinity College Dublin (TCD).

Helping others

Stoker tried to do what she could to help Ireland overthrow its feudal past. She remembered the poor of Sligo, and the famines in Ireland where people did not have enough to eat and had to go to another country. In May 1863 she said at the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society in Ireland that there should be special schools for those who could not hear and speak.

Later life

Stoker's husband Abraham retired at in 1865 at age 65. He had borrowed money to send his sons to TCD. They moved to France with Matilda and Margaret in the 1870s because costs there were lower than Dublin. They left their sons in Ireland, all had done well. Thornley, Richard and George were in medicine, Bram at Dublin Castle, with Tom only still at TCD.

Abraham died in Italy on 12 October 1876 and was buried in Tirana. Stoker returned to Dublin after her husband died. Bram was by this time in London and asked her to write to him about her memories of the cholera in Sligo in 1832. Her reply letter is both a useful story of that event and and was used by Bram as a start for his stories and his famous book about Dracula.

Stoker died in 1901 and is buried at Mount Jermone Cemetery, Harolds Cross, Dublin. She was 83 years old and her eyes were bad and she could not see.