Queer Places:
University of Cambridge, 4 Mill Ln, Cambridge CB2 1RZ
Chiesa Evangelica Valdese, Via Pier Antonio Micheli, 26, 50121 Firenze FI
Cimitero Acattolico, Piazzale Donatello, 38, 50132 Firenze FI

The Reverend Robert John Tennant (January 14, 1809 – July 24, 1842) was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, on January 14, 1809, the younger son of James Tennant. He received his early education at Christ's Hospital in London before entering Trinity College, Cambridge, as a pensioner on February 14, 1827, at the age of eighteen. During his university years, he distinguished himself academically as a scholar in 1829, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1831, and later proceeded to a Master of Arts in 1835. While at Cambridge, he became a member of the elite intellectual and discussion society known as the Cambridge Apostles. As a man of modest means with minimal prospects for a university fellowship, Tennant travelled to Edinburgh to canvass unsuccessfully for the Professorship of English Literature at the High School of Edinburgh.

Transitioning into a vocation as a clergyman and schoolmaster, Tennant performed a diverse spiritual journey before settling abroad. He eventually moved to Italy, where he served for nearly four years as a dedicated and hard-working Anglican chaplain to the British residents in Florence, working under the jurisdiction of the legation. In his pastoral capacity in Florence, he took pity on Mariquita Dorotea Francesca Eroles, the Spanish widow of the disturbed and self-harming David Reid. Tennant married Mariquita, stepping into a complex family dynamic tied to her previous marriage.

His life was cut short overseas when he died at Fiesole on July 24, 1842, at the age of thirty-three. He was buried on July 26, 1842, in the Cimitero Acattolico (English Cemetery) in Florence, with contemporary diarists such as J.L. Maquay recording his funeral attendance. Following his death, the congregation of Holy Trinity Church voted to raise a commemorative monument and tablet to honor his energy, talents, and high character. This memorial sparked controversy when his widow violently opposed its placement inside the church, insisting he already had a proper marker in the English Cemetery; the tablet was eventually placed in the garden of the former Holy Trinity Church (now the Waldensian Church). After his death, his widow Mariquita returned to England, where she founded the Clewer Sisters House of Mercy—an institution focused on training women and prostitutes to work as servants—and she was subsequently commemorated with a blue plaque in Windsor.

References:

The Cambridge Apostles, 1820-1914: Liberalism, Imagination, and Friendship in British Intellectual and Professional Life 1st Edition by W.C. Lubenow

Other references:

• Peter Allen, The Cambridge Apostles: The Early Years (Cambridge University Press, 1978 / 2010) – Features historical context and records regarding Robert J. Tennant's early academic and intellectual circles at Cambridge.
• John O. Waller (Biographical and Literary Works on Tennyson and his Friends) – Details the close interpersonal connections between Robert Tennant, the Lushingtons, and the Tennysons, including Tennant's later life as an Anglican chaplain in Florence, Italy, and his marriage to an Italian citizen.
• Family and Genealogical Records (Wilson of Eshton Pedigree) – Archival family records detailing familial relations, such as the marriage of John Robert Tennant to Frances Mary Wilson on May 28, 1839.

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