Author: Balfour, Mary
Biography:
by
Ragaz, Sharon (SR)
BALFOUR, Mary (b c. 1789: DIB)
Her exact dates are not known but her father, John Balfour, was a physician who married a Miss Moore, daughter of Dr. Samuel Moore, in Derry, Ireland, in Jan. 1778. He became a clergyman in 1789 and served the church at Arregall [Errigal], Londonderry, from 1797 until his death in 1807; it is not known if his wife survived him. According to the DIB Mary was born on 24 Jan. but the year is not known. Mary Balfour had several sisters (Catherine and Eliza) and, with them, she established schools at Limavady, Londonderry, and at Belfast. The preface to Hope is dated from Newtown Limavady. She knew Irish, was a member of Belfast’s Harp Society, and contributed to Edward Bunting’s 1809 General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland. One of the poems in Hope she later rewrote as Kathleen O’Neill. A Grand National Melodrama and it was performed and published in Belfast in 1814. The preface to Hope establishes that it was written "since the publication of Mr. Campbell's admired Poem, The Pleasures of Hope [1799], but without any reference to it." (DIB; ancestry.co.uk 29 May 2026; findmypast.co.uk 29 May 2026; Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English) SR
Other Names:
- Miss [Mary] Balfour