Author: Barnard, Anne
Biography:
BARNARD, Anne, formerly Lindsay (1750-1825: ODNB)
She was the eldest child of the fifth Earl of Balcarres, James Lindsay, and Anne (Dalrymple) Lindsay, and was brought up at the family home in Fife and at Edinburgh. In London, where she moved in the 1770s to live with her sister Margaret Fordyce (later Burges, q.v.), she became part of a vibrant literary and political circle. After romantic disappointments with both William Windham and Henry Dundas (later Lord Melville), she married Andrew Barnard, a much younger man who, through her influence with Dundas, was appointed colonial secretary at the Cape of Good Hope. Her journals provide a detailed view of their experiences there. After her husband’s death in 1807, Lady Anne returned to London and lived quietly until her death. “Auld Robin Grey” was written at Balcarres in 1771 after Margaret’s marriage, and became widely known and much admired. However, Lady Anne was unwilling to own her authorship until Walter Scott publicly attributed the ballad to her in his The Pirate (1822); by then she had the additional incentive of heading off a spurious claim by the Rev. William Leeves. (ODNB 21 Feb. 2018; Jane Millgate, “Unclaimed Territory: The Ballad of ‘Auld Robin Gray’ and the Assertion of Authorial Ownership,” The Library 8.4 [2007] 423-441)
Other Names:
- Lady Anne Lindsay