Author: Brooke, Frances
Biography:
BROOKE, Frances formerly Moore (1723-89: ancestry.co.uk)
Although the year of her baptism is given as 1784 in ODNB, ancestry records show 24 Jan. 1783 and she may have been born in late 1782. She was born in Claypole, Lincolnshire, to the Rev. Thomas Moore and his wife Mary Knowles. Her early years—indeed, her entire life—were unsettled by frequent moves. When she was two, the family moved to Carlton Scroop, Lincolnshire, where Thomas Moore took over his father’s parish. After he died in 1727, the family moved first to Peterborough and then, after the death of Mary Moore in 1738, Frances and her sisters went to live with an aunt and uncle at Tydd St Mary. She had been educated by her mother and she inherited a modest sum from her father—enough to enable her to move to London by about 1748. Little is known of her life during the following years until, in about 1754, she married the Rev. John Brooke, a widower with one daughter. They had one child who died in infancy and a son, John Moore Brooke, in 1757. She established a successful weekly periodical, the Old Maid, where she wrote as Mary Singleton, spinster; it was published 1755-56 and reissued in volume form in 1764. Other works followed: Virginia a Tragedy, with Odes, Pastorals, and Translations (1756); Letters from Juliet Lady Catesby (1760), a translation from French of a work by Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni; and a novel, History of Lady Julia Mandeville. Her works were popular and went to multiple editions. Meanwhile, John Brooke was serving in North America as a chaplain for the British army and in 1761 he was appointed to the garrison of Quebec. Frances, with her son and her sister, followed him there in 1763, remaining in Quebec until 1767. While there she wrote another novel, set in Quebec, History of Emily Montague (1769). Her later life was spent mostly in London and she sometimes lived separately from her husband. She published translations from French and, in 1777, a novel, The Excursion. She struggled to have her theatrical work produced but that changed in 1773-78 when she owned the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, with Richard and Mary Ann Yates. In the final decade of her life she wrote two comic operas, Rosina (1782) and Marian (1788). John Brooke died at Colney, Norfolk, on 21 Jan. 1789 and she died just two days later at her son’s home in Sleaford, Lincolnshire. She was interred at St. Denys church in Sleaford. Her The History of Charles Mandeville was issued posthumously in 1790. (ODNB 27 Jan. 2021; ancestry.co.uk 27 Jan. 2021) SR
Other Names:
- Mrs. Brooke
- Mrs. [Frances] Brooke