Quick Facts
Biography
Ellin Devis (December 1746 - February 1820) was a schoolmistress and author of The Accidence (1775), a populareighteenth-century grammar. She came from an artistic family - her father Arthur was known for his "conversation pieces" and her brother Arthur for historical portraits.
According to Carol Percy, The Accidence “seems to have been the first English grammar directed exclusively to a female audience.” Despite being written for girls, Devis’s grammar was recommended by her peers as a general introduction to Robert Lowth’s Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762).
Devis taught at several schools in fashionable areas of London, and her pupils include Maria Edgeworth, Frances Burney (later novelist Madame d'Arblay) and her sister Susannah, Hester Thrale and later her daughter Cecilia Piozzi. While Devis was mistress of the Queen’s Square school it was known as “the Young Ladies Eton.”