Emily Binney (née Pryor)

Father and mother: William Pryor (see biography from Dictionary of Canadian Biography) and Mary Barbara Voss (or Foss)

Dates: 1808-1890

Married: Stephen Binney in 1828. See marriage records.

Children: William, Lucy, Emily and Irwine
and some children who died when young (see Stephen Binney).

See 1881 census entry.

Other facts: Her brother was another William Pryor. See his obituary and biography from Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

The letters from Stephen Binney, her husband, and Lucy Binney, her daughter, describe Emily nursing her husband devotedly in his last illness, and Lucy's letter also describes Emily being depressed after his death. Her own letters (see first letter and second letter) show a kind mother, full of details about her children.

Emily Binney inherited nearly all of her her husband's estate. She also had some money in her own right, inherited from her father. See her will and a discussion about this.

Family photo

It's hard to tell what she felt towards her husband. She is obviously completely loyal to him. But the letters after his death hardly mention him. When writing to her daughter Emily Dibblee about leaving her children in England to rejoin her husband in India, the mother compares it to her own children leaving. But a very sympathetic letter about Emily Dibblee's husband dying doesn't mention her own husband dying. It could be that she couldn't talk of it, but I suspect not. Stephen Binney does not sound like a very lovable character (see his letter and accounts of his life).