| Description | Ellen was the first Whitelands May Monarch.
‘the student elected was in mourning for her father and was dressed completely in sombre black. Quick thinking by the Head Governess led to her placing her own large white silk evening shawl over the black dress and adding garlands of flowers’ (M Cole, Whitelands College May Queen Festival, 1981, p22)
John Ruskin wrote in a letter about Queen Ellen:
‘Photos quite safe, but I’m rather frightened of my queen. She looks to me between 35 and 38, and rather as if she would bring back the inquisition and trial by the rack. Photographs are horrid things.’
[Ruskin in a letter to Faunthorpe, 22nd May 1881]
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