Lydia Burns

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Lydia (Elizabeth) Burns. Photograph by William Hall & Son., Brighton 1877
Friedrich Engels. Photograph by William Hall & Son., Brighton 1877
Lydia's death house. 122, Regent's Park Road, London NW

Lydia Burns (called Lizzy ) (born August 6, 1827 in Manchester ; died September 12, 1878 in London ), was an Irish cotton spinner and the wife of Friedrich Engels . She was the younger sister of Mary Burns , who was in a relationship with Engels and, according to generally accepted belief, was also married until her death in 1863. Both sisters lived at times with Engels in a household in Manchester. Engels married her on September 11, 1878, the day before her death.

Life

Lydia Burns was the daughter of the dyer Michael Byrne (born around 1790 in Ireland ) and his wife Mary, b. Conroy. Burns had three sisters: Mary (born September 29, 1821), Ann (born June 14, 1824) and Bridget (born September 23, 1826).

Wilhelm Pieper , Marx's secretary, documents in December 1850 that Engels is in contact with Mary and Lydia Burns.

The April 1861 census counted Mary Boardman ("Wife of a Business Traveler") and her sister-in-law Elizabeth Byrne at 7 Rial Street in Manchester .

On September 18, 1867, leading representatives of the Fenians were liberated in Manchester. It is believed that Lydia Burns helped the fugitives. Eleanor Marx wrote to her parents Karl Marx and Jenny Marx on June 2, 1869 : “Yesterday Mrs. Burns and I were at the market, and Mrs. Burns showed me the stand where Kelly was selling pots and the house where he lived Has. It was really fun, Mrs. Burns told me a lot of funny stories about "Kelly and Daisy" that she knew very well because she used to hang out with them and sometimes visit them three or four times a week. "

On a trip to Heidelberg to put their niece Mary Ellen Burns in a girls' college with Friedrich Engels, the “Heidelberger Zeitung” reported on November 1, 1875: “Prince Karl. Engels and wife and Miss Burns from London 'arrived yesterday. From the end of February to mid-March 1877, Engels and Lydia Burns stayed in the English seaside resort of Brighton. Photographs of the two of them were also taken there by the “William Hall & Son, 80, West Street” photography studio. In July 1877 Lydia went to Ramsgate for a cure . Jenny Marx visited her there.

On the evening of September 11, 1878, Engels rushed to St. Mark's Church near his home to fetch Pastor WB Galloway. After a serious illness, Burns wanted to marry her long-term partner Engels on her deathbed. Lydia Engels died the next day. Jenny Marx condensed Friedrich Engels on September 12, 1878 from Malvern : “I cannot tell you how much we were all moved by the sad news . We had known for weeks, for months, that it would turn out like this, and yet you can't get used to the idea that quickly. how do I regret it, how will you miss your "let" everything everywhere. I myself will never forget it and will always keep it in loving memory. How good, how sympathetic she was always towards me, in all the times of worries and torments, with what 'right tact she understood all relationships, with what' special intelligence she judged people, all of this will always be remembered. "

Engels reported the death of his wife in the German social democratic “Vorwärts” . Lydia Engels was buried in the Roman Catholic Cemetery of St Mary’s Church in North West London. Engels had the words "In memory of Lydia, wife of Frederick Engels born August 6th, 1827 died September 12th 1878 RIP " on the gravestone under a Celtic cross.

Paul Lafargue writes about Lydia Burns in his memoirs of Friedrich Engels: “His wife, of Irish descent and a hot-blooded patriot, was in constant contact with Irishmen, of whom there were very many in Manchester, and was always up to date on their plots; more than one Fenian found accommodation in her house and it was thanks to the leader of the coup d'état who wanted to free the Fenians, who had been sentenced to death, on the scales to the gallows that he was able to escape the police. "

literature

  • Walther Victor : General and the women. From experience to theory . Gutenberg Book Guild, Berlin 1932.
    • Walther Victor: General and the women. From experience to theory. A book about Friedrich Engels . Hammerich and Lesser, Hamburg 1947.
    • Walther Victor: General and the women. From experience to theory . Reprint of the original edition Berlin 1932. Edited and commented by Harald Wessel. Central antiquariat of the GDR, Leipzig 1982.
  • VW: Memories of Friedrich Engels. The three last women in the “Generals” house . In: The People's Illustrated . VI. Vol., 1937, No. 35.
  • Paul Rose: The Manchester Martyrs. The story of a Fenian Tragedy . Lawrence and Wishart, London 1970.
  • Harald Wessel : House visit to Friedrich Engels. A journey on his life path . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1971, p. 141 ff.
  • Yvonne Kapp : Eleanor Marx. Family Life (1855-1883) . Lawrence and Wishart, London 1972, pp. 89, 90, 106, 113-117, 184-186, 189-191, 237. ISBN 0-85315-248-9
  • Roy Whitfield: Friedrich Engels' places of residence in Manchester from 1850–1869 . In: News from the Engels House . Issue 3. ceres, Wuppertal 1980, pp. 85-101.
  • Rosi Rudich: Where did Friedrich Engels live in Manchester? In: Contributions to Marx-Engels Research 7, Berlin 1980, pp. 69–81.
  • Rosi Rudich: Some comments on the article “Where did Friedrich Engels live in Manchester?” In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research , 10, Berlin 1981, pp. 117–119.
  • Harald Wessel: Tussy or thirty letters about the very eventful life of Eleanor Marx-Aveling. Written between 1973 and 1980 at various locations, in Brighton, Stratford, Derby and others. Manchester, Paris, New York a. Scheveningen, on Ufnau in Lake Zurich, in Leipzig, Halle, Karlovy Vary, on the Moselle and Spree, in the North Sea regions, but mostly on the banks of the Thames. Addressed to a woman of our day . 4. edit Ed. Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1982.
  • Walther Victor: Return over the mountains. An autobiography , edited by Herbert Greiner-Mai with the collaboration of Marianne Victor. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin and Weimar 1982, p. 236 ff.
  • Roy Whitfield: Friedrich Engels in Manchester. The Search for a Shadow . Working Class Movement Library, Manchester 1988. ISBN 0906932211
  • Heinrich Gemkow : Five women at Friedrich Engels' side . In: Contributions to the history of the labor movement . (BzG), Berlin 1995, No. 4, pp. 47-58.
  • Gisela Mettele : Mary and Lizzie Burns. Friedrich Engels' companions in life . In: Marx-Engels-Yearbook 2011 . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2012, pp. 130–149.
  • Rolf Hecker , Angelika Limmroth (ed.): Jenny Marx. The letters . Karl Dietz Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-320-02297-6

supporting documents

  1. ↑ First published by Walther Victor in 1937. (VW: Memories of Friedrich Engels. The three last women in the “Generals” house .)
  2. ↑ An original is in the IISG , Amsterdam. Signature (SPD) BG A2 / 968 .
  3. ↑ An original is e.g. B. in the IISG, Amsterdam. Signature BG C1 / 493 .
  4. ^ Photograph of the tombstone. Recorded by Walther Victor in 1937. (Illustration in: Walther Victor: Return over the mountains. An autobiography , based on p. 240.)
  5. ^ Facsimile of the "Certified Copy of an Entry of Death 199-1878". (Harald Wessel: House visit to Friedrich Engels. A journey on his life path , p. 141.)
  6. ↑ Facsimile of the marriage entry of April 26, 1821. (Roy Whitfield: Friedrich Engels in Manchester. The Search for a Shadow , p. 86.)
  7. ↑ "Table C". (Roy Whitfield: Friedrich Engels in Manchester. The Search for a Shadow , p. 87.)
  8. ^ "What are the Irish women doing?" (Wilhelm Pieper to Engels. December 16, 1850. Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe . Section III. Volume 3. Berlin 1981, p. 703.)
  9. ↑ On the identity of Friedrich Engels with "Frederick Boardman" see the essay by Roy Whitfield from 1980: Friedrich Engels' residence in Manchester from 1850–1869 .
  10. ^ Paul Rose: The Manchester Martyrs. The story of a Fenian Tragedy . Lawrence and Wishart, London 1970, p. 81.
  11. ↑ Thomas Joseph Kelly (January 6, 1833 - February 5, 1908). Irish revolutionary and one of the leaders of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (Fenians)
  12. ↑ Timothy Deasy. Irish revolutionary and one of the leaders of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (Fenians).
  13. ↑ On September 18, 1867, an attempt was made to free them. The perpetrators went down in history as 'Manchester Martyrs'.
  14. ^ Eleanor Marx to Karl and Jenny Marx. June 2, 1869. In: The daughters of Karl Marx. Unpublished letters. Translated from the French and from the English by Karin Kersten and Jutta Prasse. Edited by Olga Meier. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1981. ISBN 3-462-01432-3 . Pp. 51-52.
  15. ↑ Manfred Schöncke and Rolf Hecker: A photograph by Helena Demuth? To Engels' trip to Heidelberg in 1875 . In: Marx-Engels-Yearbook 2004 . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2005. ISBN 3-05-003323-1 , p. 212.
  16. ↑ "Yesterday I arrived at Ramsgate happily and was received so kindly and graciously by your wife that I have to write you a few lines about her right away." Jenny Marx to Friedrich Engels. Approx. between July 4th and 11th, 1877. (Rolf Hecker, Angelika Limmroth (Ed.): Jenny Marx. Die Briefe , p. 525.)
  17. ^ Tristram Hunt: Friedrich Engels. The man who invented Marxism . Berlin 2012, p. 357 .
  18. ↑ Jenny Marx to Engels. September 12, 1878. (Rolf Hecker, Angelika Limmroth (Ed.): Jenny Marx. Die Briefe , p. 539.)
  19. ↑ "I hereby inform my friends in Germany that my wife Lydia, geb. Burns, who was snatched from me by death that night. London, September 12, 1878. Friedrich Engels. ”( Vorwärts , Leipzig No. 110 of September 18, 1878, p. 4 column 3).
  20. ^ Yvonne Kapp: Eleanor Marx. Family Life (1855-1883) , p. 192.
  21. ↑ Walther Victor: Return over the mountains. An autobiography , p. 237 and after p. 240. (Photo of the tombstone)
  22. ↑ Mohr and General. Memories of Marx and Engels . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1965, pp. 477-478
  23. ↑ pp. 10–11 and the chapter “Lizzie”, pp. 111–118.
  24. ↑ This is Walther Victor.
  25. ^ Facsimile print in: Heinz Willmann : History of the Arbeiter-Illustrierte Zeitung 1921–1938 . Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1975, pp. 348-349.
  26. ↑ Essentially reproduces Roy Whitfield's information: Friedrich Engels' places of residence in Manchester from 1850–1869 .
  27. ↑ Makes it clear that Harald Wessel would by no means be in the right with regard to Engels “official” or “official addresses”.
personal data
SURNAME Burns, Lydia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Byrne, Elizabeth; Burns, Lizzy (nickname); Burns, Lizzie (nickname); Engels, Lydia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish cotton spinner and wife of Friedrich Engels
DATE OF BIRTH August 6, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Manchester
DATE OF DEATH September 12, 1878
Place of death London