Author: Ballantyne, Hermione
Biography:
BALLANTYNE, Hermione (d 1854: Newcastle Journal)
She was born Hermione Parker, daughter of George Parker, a London merchant. After her father’s death and her mother’s remarriage, her step-father was the Rev. William Rutherford, assistant to the minister of Kelso. In 1797 she married John Ballantyne (ODNB) but his death in 1821 left her in poverty. A second marriage in the Isle of Man on 17 Sept. 1828 to John Glover of Kendal seems to have made her financial situation only more dire; she supported the family by teaching French and music. Walter Scott (q.v.) helped her financially by directing to her the payments for his contributions to Ballantyne’s Novelists’ Library. Through John Ballantyne, she owned the manuscript of Scott’s Lady of the Lake, and she sold it to the publisher Robert Cadell for £10. She died on 25 Mar. 1854 and her burial as Mrs. Hermione Ballantyne is recorded as being on 28 Mar. 1854 at Dunbar; a newspaper notice identified her as the widow of John Ballantyne, "the friend and partner of the late Sir Walter Scott, Bart." Other publications include a two-volume novel, Seymour, or the Man of Mystery (Jedburgh, 1835); a book of verse, Birds, British and Foreign (Berwick, 1843); and contributions to Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, “Rambling Reminiscences of Sir Walter Scott” (1843-44). (RPW; James C. Corson, Notes and Index to Sir Herbert Grierson’s Edition of The Letters of Sir Walter Scott [1979]; findmypast.co.uk 2 June 2025; Newcastle Journal 1 Apr. 1854) SR
Other Names:
- Mrs. Ballantyne