{{Short description|English writer}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2019}} {{Use British English|date=June 2019}} {{Infobox person | name = Jane Ellen Panton | image = Jane Ellen Panton (born Frith) in Past and Present Number One (cropped).jpg | image_size = 200px | caption = Jane Ellen Panton, from the triptych, ''Past And Present'' | birth_name = Jane Ellen Frith | birth_date = 18 October 1847 | birth_place = Regent's Park, London, England | death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1923|5|13|1847|10|18}} | death_place = Bloomsbury, London, England | death_cause = | other_names = | known_for = Writing | spouse = {{marriage|James Albert Panton|10 August 1869}} | children = Five | parents = William Powell Frith (father) | relatives = Walter Frith (brother) | signature = | website = | footnotes = }}
'''Jane Ellen Panton''', born '''Jane Ellen Frith''' (18 October 1847 – 13 May 1923) was an English writer.
==Life== Jane Ellen Frith was born in Regent's Park in 1847. Her father, William Powell Frith was a successful painter and Panton reports that he showed very little interest in his children. After her mother, Isabelle Jane, died in 1880 she found out that her father had a mistress and further children. At this point her father married his former mistress.
Panton appeared as a model in the 1859 painting trilogy Past and Present by Augustus Egg which incidentally deals with a spouse being unfaithful. She also appeared in another two paintings; one by her father and the other by Alfred Elmore. Her father's house would host visits by Charles Dickens and John Ruskin.<ref name=odnb>{{cite ODNB|id=55642|first=Charlotte|last=Mitchell|title=Panton, Jane Ellen (1847–1923)}}</ref>
She married James Albert Panton<ref name=obit>"Obituary: Mrs. J. E. Panton", ''The Times'', 1923</ref> at All Saints' Church in Kensington on 10 August 1869. Her husband was a partner in a family brewery business and he was bought out by his brother's widow in 1882. During that period she lived in the Dorset market town of Wareham, which featured in her memoir of 1909, ''Fresh Leaves And Green Pastures'',<ref name="Panton 1909">{{Cite book|last=Panton|first=Jane Ellen (Frith) Mrs 1848-[from old catalog|url=http://archive.org/details/freshleavesgreen00pant|title=Fresh leaves and green pastures|date=1909|publisher=New York, Brentano|others=The Library of Congress}}</ref> the domestic print run of which was destroyed in settlement of a libel action brought by local squire Guy Marston, who contested the claim that he had wantonly destroyed records of the Rempstone estate upon his inheritance.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ryder|first=Richard|title=The Calcrafts of Rempstone Hall: The Intriguing History of a Dorset Dynasty|publisher=Halsgrove|year=2005}}</ref> The memoir was, however, published in the USA.
The couple briefly lived in Bournemouth before settling in Bromley for four years, where Panton befriended the writer Dinah Craik who lived nearby. During this time they awaited payment for the sale of their share in the brewery, and Panton decided to write to raise money, pitching the idea of articles on home furnishing to the ''Ladies Pictorial'' magazine. She showed originality in her articles and in the idea of writing about interior design. In addition, Panton earned substantial sums as an interior design consultant.<ref name="Panton 1909"/>
Panton's novels were numerous, but "undistinguished".<ref name="odnb" /> They included ''Having and Holding. A Story of Country Life'', which deals with rural politics in a fictional Southern English county,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.jarndyce.co.uk/online_catalogues/232.pdf |title=London: Jarndyce Catalogue No. CCXXXII. Women Writers 1789–1948, Part III, P–Z, Item 3. Retrieved 12 October 2018. |access-date=12 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181013014633/https://www.jarndyce.co.uk/online_catalogues/232.pdf |archive-date=13 October 2018 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and ''The Cannibal Crusader: an Allegory for the Times'' (1908), in which a noble savage exposes the folly of modern society. An obituary in ''The Times'' stated she had 'a vivid and brilliant personality' and was 'a witty and outspoken conversationalist' (21 May 1923).<ref name=odnb/>
Jane Ellen Panton died in Bloomsbury in 1923.<ref name=odnb/>
==Works== *''Panton's Poems'' (1880) *''Country Sketches in Black and White'' (1882) *''From Kitchen to Garret: Hints for Young Householders'' (1887) *''Nooks and Corners; being the Companion Volume to "From Kitchen to Garret"'' (1889) *''[https://archive.org/details/havingholdingsto03pant/page/n5/mode/2up Having and Holding: A Story of Country Life]'' (1890) *''Homes of Taste: Economical Hints'' (1890) *''Within Four Walls: A Handbook for Invalids'' (1893) *''Suburban Residences and How To Circumvent Them'' (1896)<ref name="Panton2012">{{cite book |author=Jane Ellen Panton |title=Suburban Residences and How to Circumvent Them |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X7m2fQ6wfEsC |date=16 August 2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-05320-4}}</ref> *[https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100548507 ''Leaves from a Life''] (her autobiography, 1908) *''A Cannibal Crusader: An Allegory for the Times'' (1908) *''Fresh leaves and green pastures'' (1909) *''Leaves from a Garden'' (1910) *''Most of the Game'' (1911) *''More Leaves from a Life'' (further volume of autobiography, 1911)
==Family== James Albert Panton and Jane had five children, three sons and two daughters.<ref name=odnb/> One of the sons was the physician Philip Noel Panton (1877–1950).<ref>{{acad|id=PNTN896PN|name=Panton, Philip Noel}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{commons category}} * {{Gutenberg author|id=46478}}
{{William Powell Frith}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Panton, Jane Ellen}} Category:1847 births Category:1923 deaths Category:Writers from the London Borough of Camden Category:English women writers