_Anna Lightfoot_ (Vol. vii., p. 595.).--I have heard my mother speak of
Anna Lightfoot: her family belonged to the religious community called
Friends or Quakers. My mother was born 1751, and died in the year 1836. The
aunt of Anna Eleanor Lightfoot was next-door-neighbour to my grandfather,
who lived in Sir Wm. Warren's Square, Wapping. The family were from
Yorkshire, and the father of Anna was a shoemaker, and kept a shop near
Execution Dock, in the same district. He had a brother who was a
linendraper, living in the neighbourhood of St. James's, at the west end of
the town; and Anna was frequently his visitor, and here it was that she
became acquainted with the great man of the day. She was missing, and
advertised for by her friends; and, after some time had elapsed, they
obtained some information as to her retreat, stating that she was well
provided for; and her condition became known to them. She had a son who was
a corn-merchant, but, from some circumstance, became deranged in his
intellects, and it is said committed suicide. But whether she had a
daughter, I never heard. A retreat was provided for Anna in one of those
large houses surrounded with a high wall and garden, in the district of
Cat-and-Mutton Fields, on the east side of Hackney Road, leading from Mile
End Road; where she lived, and it is said died, but in what year I cannot
say. All this I have heard my mother tell when I was a young lad;
furthermore your deponent knoweth not.