Author: Compton, Margaret
Biography:
COMPTON, Margaret, formerly CLEPHANE (1791-1830: ancestry.co.uk)
She was born on 13 Dec. 1791 and baptised at Edinburgh on 2 Jan. 1792, the youngest of three daughters of Major-General William Douglas Maclean Clephane (1759-1803) and his wife Marianne Maclean (1765-1843), who had married on 4 Sept. 1790 at Portmoak, Kinross. She grew up at her mother’s family home, Torloisk, Isle of Mull, and Edinburgh. On her father’s death in 1803 in Grenada (where he had been posted as military governor) Walter Scott (q.v.), who was already her godfather, became her guardian. Scott admired and encouraged her writing; the two corresponded frequently. She married Spencer Joshua Alwyne Compton (1790-1861) at his country seat, Castle Ashby, on 20 Aug. 1815, having previously undergone a marriage ceremony in Edinburgh on 24 July. He became the Second Marquess of Northampton on his father’s death in 1828 and she the Marchioness. They went on to have six children. After marriage they were often in London but began to spend time in Naples where two children were born in 1817 and 1825. She died on 2 Apr. 1830 in Rome, from childbirth complications following the birth of her daughter Margaret Mary Frances on 14 Mar. 1830. There is a portrait of her playing the harp c. 1820 by Henry Raeburn (1756-1823). A portfolio of 48 loose-leafed poetry and a 29-page booklet are at Belton House, Lincolnshire. Irene (1833) was published posthumously, prepared for the press by her husband. (Scotlands People; ancestry.co.uk 25 Oct. 2022; “Compton, Spencer Joshua Alwyne,” ODNB 25 Oct. 2022; Northampton Mercury 3 Apr., 24 Apr., 12 June 1830) AA