McManus 168

Eleanor Baxter (baptismal name Helen), was the daughter of Elizabeth Gorrell (1763-84) and William Baxter (1767-1854). Her father set up a steam powered flax spinning mill at Lower Dens Works in Dundee in 1822, operating as William Baxter and Sons (later Baxter Brothers).^[5] Eleanor was the eldest of eight children, followed by Edward ( 1791-1871), Margaret (1794-1845), David (1793-1872), John Gorrell (1796-1853), William Gorrell (1798-1852), Mary Ann (1801-1884), and (Elizabeth  1802-1883). Eleanor’s baptismal name was Helen and she also appears as ‘Ellen’ in Baxter genealogy.^[6] Such variations were fairly commonplace, and  the names Elinor and Eleanor came into vogue with the publication of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility in 1811, after its heroine. We can only speculate whether this fashion influenced her chosen forename.

Unlike her sister, the philanthropist Mary Ann Baxter, Eleanor rarely ventured into social action in the public sphere. Her most notable involvement with civic life in Dundee occurred in 1863, when she, together with Mary Ann Baxter and David Baxter, gifted Baxter Park to the City. The Baxters donated 36 acres for a public park, designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, intended to provide mill workers with a green space for recreation in the industrial city. The opening of Baxter Park on 9 September 1863 by Earl Russell was a grand civic occasion, with workers’ processions, a presentation of the Deed of Gift to the Baxters,^[7] and the unveiling of a statue to the newly knighted Sir David Baxter. An estimated 70-80,000 Dundonians attended the opening (roughly three quarters of the population), ^[8]and the Dundee Advertiser recorded the generosity of Sir David and ‘the Misses Baxters, his kind-hearted sisters’.^[9]

Otherwise, as the  unmarried daughter of a wealthy middle class family, Eleanor Baxter appears to have lived a retired life in the family home at Ellengowan, in Dundee. It can be surmised that like similar spinsters she was involved in the care of her elderly father, or other family members. This cannot be confirmed, since Eleanor left no personal records. She is, however, recorded as a member of the Congregational Ward Chapel, with her father, sister Mary Ann and brothers,^[4] a church which acquired a fashionable reputation from its upwardly mobile congregation, and carriages at the door.^[10] Eleanor died in 1868, aged 80, from Bright’s disease, a kidney complaint described as ‘of long standing’, so she may have lived out her final years as an invalid.