Jane Mullett Tobin

Jane Mullett Tobin (1784-1837) married James Webbe Tobin (1767-1814) of Bristol, son of a West Indies planter and brother to the playwright John Tobin (1770-1804), on 8 September 1807. Shortly thereafter, they removed to his plantation in Nevis, West Indies, much to the regret of Thomas Mullett. James and John Tobin became friends with several literary figures in Bristol in the 1790s, including Joseph Cottle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey, and were sympathetic to Coleridge’s pantisocratic scheme. At some point prior to his premature death in 1804, John Tobin met Elizabeth Benger, the friend of his sister-in-law and their mutual friend, Mary Reid of Leicester; Benger later published a Memoir of John Tobin in 1820. Jane Tobin had known Mary Steele and her half-sister Anne Tomkins since the 1780s, and by 1805 had also become friends with Mary Reid, Crabb Robinson, and most likely Mary Hays, both friends of Reid and J. J. Evans, Tobin’s brother-in-law. James Tobin died at Nevis in 1815, and Jane Mullett Tobin returned immediately to England, but not in time to see her father again, for he had died the previous year. In 1823 Jane Tobin removed to Heidelberg for the purpose of procuring a German education for her four sons; she took with her letters of introduction to various teachers previously known to Crabb Robinson, who was a frequent traveler in Germany. Crabb Robinson writes in his Diary on 3 April 1823:  ‘I called on Rolfe – Dined in Castle Stt – Took tea with Anty Robinson and then went to Mrs Tobin by invitation.  Mrs T: is abot to go to reside in Heidelberg for economy … to educate her 4 sons.  I have given her a letter to Pitchford, to whom I have sent by her Wordsworth’s Memorials & Sketches—Mrs T: is a superior woman both in understanding & character – With her were a party—Mrs Evans & 2 of her children whom I was glad [to see] Miss Benger who is again cordial with me, And has invited me to Mrs T: at their house, but I cod not accept of the invitn’ (Crabb Robinson Diary, vol. 9, f. 178). Upon her return to England, she immigrated to New York to be near her sister and brother, remaining there until her death in 1837. Of her four sons—John James (b. c. 1809-62?), Thomas Frederick (b. 1810), Walter (b. 1812), and Henry Hope (b. 1813)—all great-grandsons of Hugh Evans of Broadmead, the eldest gained some notoriety prior to a career in medicine by serving as the traveling companion and sometime amanuensis for his mother’s early Bristol friend, Sir Humphry Davy, during his extended tour of Italy in the late 1820s. Henry Crabb Robinson took an interest in Jane Tobin’s affairs long after the death of her father and husband. He writes in his diary on Friday, 17 May 1817:  ‘I afterw.s called on M.rs C. Aiken—Mrs Tobin from Nevis was there—A very sensible woman & indeed a very superior person—Ag.t her father—Mr Mullet’s consent—she married T. by no means a rich man, suffering under almost entire blindness. They went to Nevis—He distingd himself by his exertions in favour of the slaves—She transacted all his bus.s for him with great credit to herself & to the advantage of the property.  Incumbrances were paying off when he died—By her father’s death & her brother’s bankruptcy wch took place ab.t the time of her husb.s death she was reduced to a state of dependency on M.r Tobin of Bristol And it is feared that her condition will be a sad one.  Mr T. Senr her husb.s father is in a state of bad heart expected to survive but a short time and it is feared that his affairs are embarrassed.  I enjoyed Mrs Tobin’s convers.n She spoke sensibly on the condn of the colonies.  She represents the administrn of justice as corrupt & the habits of the colonists as most unfavourable to the wishes of the Abolitionists here.  She thinks the slave-registry bill necessary & that it will be efficient, if carried into a law.’ See Jane Mullett Evans, Family Chronicle of the Descendants of Thomas Evans, of Brecon, from 1678 to 1857 (Bristol: privately printed, c. 1870), 64-65; Crabb Robinson Diary, vol. 5 (1 January 1816-6 July 1817), f. 50, Dr. Williams’s Library, London.