Writing from the Heart: Key Dates in the Life of Mary Ann Evans.

1819
 Mary Ann Evans is born at South Farm, near Nuneaton, in the same year as a young princess called Victoria is born - the future Queen of Britain.
1820
 The Evans family moves to Griff House, home for the next 20 years.
1822
 Mary Ann begins her schooling at a local dame school
1824
 Mary Ann starts at Mrs Lathom's boarding school in Attleborough
c. 1827
Mary Ann moves to Mrs. Wallington's boarding school, Nuneaton.
1831
 Epidemic of Cholera, a fatal disease carried in the nation's water supply.
1832
 Mary Ann goes to study at 'Nant Glyn,' a Coventry boarding school, in the same year as the first Reform Bill is passed. The Bill means that an extra 300,000 people are now entitled to vote, but only if they are men who own enough property. Women, the working classes (most of the population), and the poor are still excluded.
1833
 Slavery is abolished across the British Empire. The government passes a Factory Act, limiting the work of children younger than 9 in factories. Children over 13 still permitted to work 12 hour days.
1835
 Mary Ann leaves school to return to Griff, where her mother is seriously ill.
1836
 Mary Ann's mother dies.
1837
 Princess Alexandra Victoria is crowned Queen Victoria. She will reign until 1901.
1841
 Robert Evans retires from his job on the Arbury estate. He is succeeded by Mary Ann's brother Isaac. Robert Evans and Mary move to Bird Grove, a house in the Coventry suburb of Foleshill.
1844
 A second Factory Act further limits the use of child labour in factories. Women are also brought under these provisions.
1849
 Robert Evans dies. Mary Ann tours Europe with her friends Charles and Cara Bray, a free-thinking Coventry couple.
1851
 Mary Ann leaves Warwickshire for London, in the year of the Great Exhibition. She begins lodging at 142 Strand. She falls in love - first with her landlord, John Chapman, then with his friend Herbert Spencer. Finally she meets George Henry Lewes, and the couple find love together. They move to Richmond, Surrey, where they will live 'in sin' until 1878.
1851-2
 Mary works anonymously as an editor for John Chapman's magazine, The Westminster Review.
1857
 Scenes of Clerical Life published - but Mary Ann's first collection of stories, set in Warwickshire, is also written anonymously.
1859
Adam Bede published - also set in Warwickshire. Mary Ann devises a pen name, 'George Eliot,' who will be identified as the author.
1860
 The Mill on the Floss published - although this novel was set in Lincolnshire, Mary Ann drew on her childhood experiences when she wrote it.
1860
 Mary Ann and George Henry Lewes visit Florence, a trip that inspired Mary Ann to write Romola.
1861
 Silas Marner published. Of all her work, this was Mary Ann's own favourite novel.
1862-3
 Romola published, the least popular of the George Eliot novels.
1866
 Felix Holt, the Radical published. This marked a return to Mary Ann's Warwickshire roots.
1867 Mary Ann and George Henry Lewes take a ten-week tour of Spain.
1870
 Government passes an Education Act, requiring all children to receive an elementary (primary) school education.
1871-2
 Middlemarch published in serial form (in installments). This will come to be considered as Mary Ann's masterpiece.
1874
 Over 5,000 new schools have opened since 1870.
1876
 Mary Ann's novel Daniel Deronda is published.
1880
Mary Ann Evans dies aged 61. Despite her fame, she is refused a burial at Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, on moral grounds. Women are still not allowed to vote.

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