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Author: Burrell, Sophia

Biography:

BURRELL, Sophia, formerly RAYMOND, later CLAY (1753-1802: ODNB)

The eldest daughter of Sarah (Webster) and Charles Raymond, she was brought up in luxury at Valentines, the house at Ilford, Essex, acquired by her father with his earnings as a captain with the East India Company. Subsequently turning banker, he was granted a baronetcy in 1774, a year after Sophia’s marriage to William Burrell, MP, director of the South Sea Company, commissioner of excise, and antiquary. Raymond having no sons, the baronetcy was inherited by Sophia’s husband, her financial inheritance thought to be £100,000. The Burrells, with three surviving sons and two daughters, lived in Harley Street, Marylebone, London, until 1787, before retreating to The Deepdene, a Palladian mansion on the edge of Dorking, Surrey, after Sir William suffered a stroke. In 1791 Sophia’s first published work, Lines sent to Mr Walpole after viewing the curiosities at Strawberry Hill, appeared, albeit anonymously, as a single sheet in an edition of  twelve. But with the publication of her collected Poems (1793) it became clear that Burrell had been writing verse for at least 20 years. These effusions, droll comments on society life and fashion interspersed with medieval tragedies, rural tales, songs, and epitaphs, had hitherto remained in manuscript, passed around friends. Poems was well received, The British Critic remarking of the verses, “some are excellent, and all are elegant.” Leigh and Sotheby, the booksellers for whom Poems was printed, remained faithful, publishing Burrell’s later, more serious works. Although in the preface to one, The Thymbriad, Burrell felt obliged to apologise for her “feeble pen, without the advantages of military science, or classical learning,” The Monthly Review commented that her work “will perhaps be read with more pleasure than many more elaborate performances.” The dedications to her publications reveal something of the social and cultural circles in which she moved, Poems being dedicated to the Earl of Mansfield and  her play, Theodora, to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (q.v.), both of whom are mentioned affectionately elsewhere in her light verse. Sir William died in 1796 and in 1797, the year in which she published her only novel, Adeline de Courcy, Sophia married Rev. William Clay. She died on 20 June 1802 at West Cowes, Isle of Wight, and was buried at St. George’s, West Grinstead, the Burrell family church. (ODNB 23 June 2023; ancestry.co.uk 23 June 2023; BC 5 [1795]; MR Jan. 1795) EC

 

 

 

Other Names:

  • Lady Burrell
  • Sophia, Lady Burrell
 

Books written (6):

London: Leigh and Sotheby, T. Payne, and J. Robson, 1793
London: Leigh and Sotheby, T. Payne, and J. Robson, 1794
London: Leigh and Sotheby, T. Payne, and J. Robson, 1794
London: I. Wallis, Lee and Hurst, and Champante and Whitrow, 1798