Congreve, Maria Bury (1846-1915)

Maria Bury Congreve's father, Dr. Bury, was George Eliot's family physician and was the reason they met in their youth. They met again years later as neighbors in Wandsworth in 1859, when their husbands became acquainted. They remained good friends for several decades, up until Eliot's death. Maria and her husband, Richard Congreve, were attempting to establish a Positivist church in London.
The couple became two of the few people Eliot told about her fiction writing career before others uncovered the secret. Richard, who was a doctor, became an invaluable source of information while Eliot was writing Lydgate's story in Middlemarch. However, because of their Positivist prejudices against remarriage, Eliot did not confide to the couple of her impending marriage to Cross. In response to a short letter from Maria on the eve of the wedding, Eliot responded with a promise that Charles Lewes would explain 'a great, momentous change' that was coming: her marriage to John Cross. Eliot remained close to the couple for years after. (Letters 7:277)

George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett, https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org

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