Personal Life & Legacy

• In June 1888, Jerome K. Jerome married Georgina Elizabeth Henrietta Stanley Marris. The daughter of a Spanish soldier, she was known by her pet name Ettie. At the time of their meeting, she was married with a five-year old daughter named Elsie.
• Jerome was very fond of her stepdaughter and was devastated when she died in 1921. They had another daughter, Rowena. Born in 1898, she survived both her parents.
• Towards the end of his life, he spent more time at his farmhouse, Gould's Grove, located southeast of Ewelme near Wallingford. However, they also had a home in London.
• Sometime towards the end of May or beginning of June 1927, Jerome and Georgia were returning to London from a motoring tour to Devon. They were coming home via Cheltenham and Northampton. En route, Jerome suffered a paralytic stroke and a cerebral haemorrhage.
• He was immediately admitted to Northampton General Hospital, where he lived for two weeks, unable to move or speak, breathing his last on 14 June 1927. His mortal remains were cremated at Golders Green and the ashes were buried at St. Mary's Church in Ewelme.
• In 1984, a small museum, dedicated to his work, was opened at Belsize House, his birth home in Walsall. However, it closed down in 2008. The contents can now be seen at the Walsall Museum.
• To commemorate his best work, ‘Three Men in a Boat’, a sculpture of a boat and a mosaic of a dog, have been erected on the Millennium Green near his childhood home in New Southgate, London.
• In 1989, a Heritage blue plaque was put up at 104 Chelsea Gardens, Chelsea Bridge Road. It states that Jerome K. Jerome wrote ‘Three Men in a Boat’ while living here.