Despite the best efforts of researchers such as Dick Collins, her true identity and background have never been established. All the available records give us is that she says she was born in London in around 1819. We know that she married Reynolds in 1835, but this was not her first marriage – she had married another man three years previously.
A poem written by Susannah Frances Reynolds in 1841 and transcribed by Jessica Elizabeth Thomas: Oft does th’ unconscious vessel fly / To distant coasts were billows high / In dread confusion roar; / And of the danger unaware.
“Always keep the receipt”—that’s what my grandmother told me. It was usually uttered after she’d bought me something from a toy shop—probably because she was worried that whatever she purchased might be faulty and have to have it exchanged. Its meaning does appear to have changed over time.