Author: Balmanno, Mary
Biography:
BALMANNO, Mary, formerly HUDSON (1801-75: ancestry.com)
She was born on 10 Nov. 1801 and baptised at St. Mary, Cromford, Derbyshire on 21 Mar. 1802, the daughter of James Hudson and Ann Summers. She married Robert Balmanno (1779-1861) on 21 Apr. 1822 at Bakewell, Derbyshire, with a further ceremony at Old St. Pancras, London, on 1 May. As "M. B." she published "Haddon Hall" in The Bijou (1828), a poem frequently reprinted in William Adam’sThe Gem of the Peak (1838, 6th edn. 1857) but only formally acknowledged in 1858. She published Poems (1830) which contained a poem on the departure of Emma Roberts (q.v.) for India. Robert Balmanno was one of the editors of the Literary Gazette and Secretary to the Artists’ Benevolent Fund. In 1830 they decided to emigrate to New York and Robert Balmanno sold works in his collection at Sotheby’s 13-16 Jan. (including a copy of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience which sold for £1) and again 4-12 May (works by Stothard and Fuseli, and the proofs of Blake’s Job). They arrived in New York aboard the Orbit on 8 Apr. 1830. She later published The Gems of Thomas Moore (1851, a.k.a. Poetical Works) which she illustrated, and a collection of her own writings, Pen and Pencil (1858), by subscription. The volume collected her poetry and gossip, much of it on Scottish historical themes; it contained many illustrations by her. Although the London subscribers were often well-connected in the literary world, their numbers were dwarfed by the newly-emerging American market. Further evidence of the power of the American market is demonstrated by the success of her painting, "Shakespeare’s Flowers," in which she illustrated all the flowers mentioned by Shakespeare. It was shown at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in New York in 1853. Robert Balmanno was also one of the leading organisers of the New York Shakespeare Society and continued collecting prints in America. Robert Balmanno died on 11 Sept. 1861. Mary Balmanno died 6 Apr. 1875 in New York. They were both buried at Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn. (ancestry.com 10 Sept. 2020; Stephen Glover, The History of the County of Derby, ed. Thomas Noble [1829] 1:103; Brooklyn Daily Eagle 11 Sept. 1861, 6 and 7 Apr. 1875) AA
Other Names:
- Mrs. [Mary] Balmanno