Saurabh jain at 19:41, 14 November 2025

2025-11-14T19:41:31Z

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{{short description|Indian poet (1853-1937)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2023}}
{{Use Indian English|date=April 2023}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Ellen Lakshmi Goreh
| image = EllenLakshmiGoreh.png
| alt = A young South Asian woman, hair dressed back beneath a wide fabric band, wearing a high, stiff, white shirt collar under black robes
| caption = Ellen Lakshmi Goreh, from an undated photograph
| other_names =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = 11 September 1853
| birth_place = [[Varanasi]] ([[Benares]]), [[Uttar Pradesh]]
| death_date = 1937
| death_place = [[Kanpur]] ([[Cawnpore]]), Uttar Pradesh
| occupation = Poet, missionary, nurse, deaconess
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
| spouse(s) =
| relatives =
}}

{{Listen|type=music|filename=In_His_Presence.mid |title='In His Presence' | description=MIDI version of 1902 setting by [[Ernest Edwin Mitchell]]<ref>
{{Citation | author1=Mitchell, Ernest Edwin | title=Two sacred songs | publication-date=1902 | publisher=Ernest Edwin Mitchell | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8604317 | access-date=11 June 2022}}</ref>
}}

'''Ellen Lakshmi Goreh''' (11 September 1853 – 1937) was an Indian poet, [[Christian missionary]], deaconess, and nurse.

== Early life ==
Ellen Lakshmi Goreh was born in [[Varanasi]], the daughter of [[Nehemiah Goreh|Nilakantha (Nehemiah) Goreh]] and Lakshmibai Jongalekar. Her father was a [[Brahmin]] who converted to [[Christianity]], and an ordained minister.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Young|first=Richard Fox|date=2005|title=Enabling Encounters: The Case of Nilakanth Nehemiah Goreh, Brahmin Convert|url=http://www.internationalbulletin.org/issues/2005-01/2005-01-014-young.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190713203952/http://www.internationalbulletin.org/issues/2005-01/2005-01-014-young.pdf|url-status=usurped|archive-date=13 July 2019|journal=International Bulletin of Missionary Research|volume=29|pages=14–20|doi=10.1177/239693930502900104|s2cid=149085805}}</ref> Her mother died in 1853,<ref>{{Cite journal|date=March 1901|title=Nehemiah Goreh|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lK8_AQAAMAAJ&dq=Nehemiah+Goreh+daughter&pg=PA195|journal=The Church Missionary Review|volume=52|pages=195}}</ref> and the infant Ellen was raised by white Westerners,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Pitman|first=Emma Raymond|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rcIMAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA334|title=Lady Hymn Writers|date=1892|publisher=T. Nelson and sons|pages=334–339|language=en}}</ref> including indigo planters named Smailes, and then by missionaries, Rev. and Mrs. W. T. Storrs,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Ellen Lakshmi Goreh|url=https://hymnology.hymnsam.co.uk/e/ellen-lakshmi-goreh|url-status=live|access-date=2021-11-13|website=The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200328133344/https://hymnology.hymnsam.co.uk/e/ellen-lakshmi-goreh |archive-date=2020-03-28 }}</ref> who called her "Nellie".<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Cho|first=Nancy Jiwon|date=2011|title='Rise, and Take the Gospel Message [...] Far away to India's Daughters': The Bicultural Missionary Poetics of Ellen Lakshmi Goreh (1853-1937), a Victorian-Era Transracial Adoptee|url=http://www.e-asianwomen.org/xml/00922/00922.pdf|journal=Asian Women|volume=27|issue=4|pages=3–31|archive-date=9 March 2022|access-date=13 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220309013926/http://www.e-asianwomen.org/xml/00922/00922.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> She was educated in [[England]] from ages 12 to 27, including at [[Home and Colonial School Society|Home and Colonial College]] in [[London]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|title=Ellen Lakshmi Goreh|url=http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/g/o/r/e/goreh_el.htm|url-status=live|access-date=2021-11-13|website=HymnTime|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200929111527/http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/g/o/r/e/goreh_el.htm |archive-date=2020-09-29 }}</ref>

== Career ==
Encouraged by English evangelist [[Frances Ridley Havergal]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bullock|first=Charles|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZxoFAAAAQAAJ&dq=Ellen+Lakshmi+Goreh&pg=PA33|title=The Day of days, conducted by C. Bullock|date=1883|pages=33–35|language=en|chapter=Hidden Music}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=April 1891|title=Some Examples of the Higher Education among the Women of India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RwhH4uGBrNwC&dq=Ellen+Lakshmi+Goreh&pg=PA97|journal=Woman's Work for Woman|volume=6|pages=97}}</ref> Goreh returned to India as a missionary in 1880.<ref name=":0" /> Her first published collection, ''From India's Coral Strand'' (1883),<ref>{{Cite book|last=Goreh|first=Ellen Lakshmi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2aa6GwAACAAJ|title="From India's Coral Strand:" Hymns of Christian Faith|date=1883|publisher="Home Words" Publishing Office|language=en}}</ref> features poetry with Christian missionary themes, informed by Goreh's experience as an Indian woman among Westerners.<ref name=":1" /> For example, "Who Will Go For Us?", in which she implores white Christian women to listen to the real concerns of their oppressed sisters over exotic fictional accounts: "This is no romantic story / Not an idle, empty tale / Not a vain farfetched ideal / No, your sisters' woes are ''real'' / Let their pleading tones prevail..."<ref name=":2" /> One of her poems became the widely-known hymn "In the Secret of His Presence", with music by American composer [[George Coles Stebbins]]; her lyrics explore themes of safety and refuge.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=July 1915|title=Gospel Hymn|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AJdVAAAAYAAJ&dq=Ellen+Lakshmi+Goreh&pg=PA624|journal=Expositor and Current Anecdotes|volume=16|pages=624}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=August 1913|title=What the Intellect of India Reads|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8Q3PAAAAMAAJ&dq=Ellen+Lakshmi+Goreh&pg=PA173|journal=Woman's Work|volume=28|pages=173}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=30 December 1920|title=In the Secret of His Presence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X8QpAAAAYAAJ&dq=Ellen+Lakshmi+Goreh&pg=RA6-PA15|journal=Herald of Gospel Liberty|volume=112|pages=15}}</ref>

Goreh taught at a girls' school in [[Amritsar]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Clark|first=Robert|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YcQHAAAAQAAJ&dq=Ellen+Lakshmi+Goreh&pg=PA72|title=The Punjab and Sindh missions of the Church missionary society|date=1885|publisher=Church Missionary Society|pages=72–73|language=en}}</ref> She trained as a nurse at [[Allahabad]], and became superintendent of the Bishop Johnson [[Orphanage]] from 1892 to 1900. She was ordained as a [[deaconess]] in 1897. Goreh's second collection of poems, titled simply ''Poems'' (1899), was published in Madras, and reflects "her radically transformed understandings" and "her intricate, multi-faceted identity" as an Indian Christian woman and a [[Interracial adoption|transracial adoptee]].<ref name=":1" /> She wrote a pamphlet, "Evangelistic Work Among Women" (1908).<ref>{{Cite book|last=Goreh|first=Ellen Lakshmi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wtAiMwEACAAJ|title=Evangelistic Work Among Women|date=1908|publisher=Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge|language=en}}</ref> In 1932 she retired from mission work.<ref name=":1" />

== Hymns by Goreh ==

* "The Great Refiner"<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Great Refiner|url=https://hymnary.org/text/take_my_heart_o_great_refiner|access-date=2021-11-13|website=Hymnary.org|language=en}}</ref>
* "No Disappointment Yonder" (also titled "Over Yonder")<ref>{{Cite web|title=Over Yonder|url=https://hymnary.org/text/no_disappointment_yonder|access-date=2021-11-13|website=Hymnary.org|language=en}}</ref>
* "Lo, the Darkness Gathers Round Us" (also titled "Beacon-Light")<ref>{{Cite web|title=Beacon-Light|url=https://hymnary.org/text/lo_the_darkness_gathers_round_us|access-date=2021-11-13|website=Hymnary.org|language=en}}</ref>
* "In the Secret of his Presence"<ref>{{Cite web|title=In the Secret of His Presence|url=https://hymnary.org/text/in_the_secret_of_his_presence_how_my_sou|access-date=2021-11-13|website=Hymnary.org|language=en}}</ref> The lyrics were treated to a musical setting by Australian composer [[Ernest Edwin Mitchell]]<ref>{{Citation | author1=Mitchell, Ernest Edwin | title=Two sacred songs the music composed by Ernest Edwin Mitchell | publication-date=1902 | publisher=Ernest Edwin Mitchell | url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/237356122 | access-date=9 June 2022}}</ref>

== Personal life ==
Goreh died in 1937, in her eighties, at St. Catherine's Hospital in [[Kanpur]].<ref name=":1" />

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==

* Nancy Jiwon Cho, [https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.436160 ''The ministry of song : unmarried British women's hymn writing, 1760-1936''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523014810/https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.436160 |date=23 May 2023 }} (Ph.D. dissertation, Durham University, 2006). Contains a chapter of Goreh
* Ellen Lakshmi Goreh, [https://books.google.com/books?id=2BoFAAAAQAAJ&dq=Ellen+Lakshmi+Goreh&pg=PA82 "Addressed to Frances Ridley Havergall, Author of 'Under the Surface'"], a poem by Goreh, published in ''The Fireside Annual'' (1877), before Goreh's return to India
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Goreh, Ellen Lakshmi}}
[[Category:1853 births]]
[[Category:1937 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Varanasi]]
[[Category:Indian women poets]]
[[Category:Indian Christian missionaries]]
[[Category:Women hymnwriters]]
[[Category:Indian adoptees]]

Ellen Lakshmi Goreh - Revision history

Saurabh jain at 19:41, 14 November 2025