7. Last years

Eliza Orme lived for two decades after she retired from public life about 1903. This chapter gathers the scanty evidence for what happened during that time, including the breakup of her household and her move to an institutional setting. Direct evidence of this period is scanty, and the narrative depends on her last letter to Samuel Alexander, supplemented by census records and a death certificate. A section on ‘Contemporaneities’ collects information about what her contemporaries were doing during this period of obscurity, and how the causes with which she was associated fared as time passed. ‘Retirement’ speculates on Orme’s ultimate motivations, in the context of her ‘unthinkable’ ambitions and changing social norms.