Eliza Stephens

Eliza Stephens (née Anna Elizabeth Planta; 6 February 1757 – 25 December 1815)^[a] was an English governess. She worked for the English aristocrat Mary Eleanor Bowes as a governess and companion and was instrumental in helping Andrew Robinson Stoney become Bowes's second husband. It is possible she had an affair with Stoney and carried his child when she married Reverend Henry Stephens, tutor to the Bowes children, shortly after meeting him. Eliza and Henry received a £1,000 payment and a £200 annuity after the Stoney–Bowes marriage. Henry became a curate in Ponteland, and Eliza assisted Stoney in keeping Bowes's daughter Mary from seeing her until Bowes won a divorce in 1789.

After Henry's death around 1790, Eliza's brother Joseph Planta helped her find employment as a governess in Russia. She worked for Countess Catherine Shuvalova, a lady-in-waiting to the empress Catherine the Great. Stephens's daughter Elizabeth married Mikhail Speransky, who would become an advisor to Tsar Alexander I of Russia, in 1798. Elizabeth died in 1799 soon after giving birth to her daughter, Elisabeth Bagréeff-Speransky. Stephens lived with Bagréeff-Speransky and other family in various places in the Russian Empire until 1815, when she died in Kyiv.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).