Author: CRESPIGNY, Caroline Champion de
Biography:
CRESPIGNY, Caroline Champion de, formerly Bathurst (1797-1861: ancestry.co.uk)
Confusingly there were two women named Caroline Champion de Crespigny. One, the daughter of Sir William Smyth, was born in 1796 and married Augustus Champion de Crespigny in 1817. He died in 1825 and she married his brother, Herbert Champion de Crespigny, but they later separated. She died in 1876 in Brighton. The author of the book listed in this bibliography was born on 14 Sept. 1797 to the Rev. Henry Bathurst (1744-1837; prebendary of Durham from 1775 and Bishop of Norfolk from 1805) and his wife Grace Coote. She was baptised on 24 Oct. 1797 in Durham Cathedral. On 19 July 1820 in Norwich she married the Rev. Heaton Champion de Crespigny (d 1858 in Australia), brother of the two men who married the other Caroline. They were the sons of Sir William Champion de Crespigny and his wife Lady Sarah Windsor. Heaton was the rector of Stoke Doyle, Northamptonshire, and became vicar of Neatishead, Norfolk, in 1822. He and Caroline had three sons in quick succession (1821, 1822, 1824) and a further two sons were born in the 1830s. However, the marriage was unhappy. In 1828 Heaton fought a duel in Calais with a Mr. Wellesley (later the Earl of Mornington) and subsequently sent him an abusive letter for which he was taken to court. Later he was apprehended under a writ of habeas corpus and questions arose as to his sanity. In the 1830s he was in debtors’ court and found to be owing £7,500. It is not known exactly when he and Caroline separated but in the 1840s she was living in Heidelberg, Germany, and publishing books of verse to support herself. There she met Captain Thomas Medwin (q.v.); they wrote verse together and he assisted her with translations from German. At this time she was described as an accomplished musician. She died in Heidelberg on 26 Dec. 1861, leaving effects of under £100. Her other works include My Souvenir; or Poems and Translations (1844), The Enchanted Rose…Translated from the German of Ernst Schulze (1848), and A Vision of Great Men, With Other Poems and Translations from the Poetesses of Germany (1848). (ancestry.co.uk 5 July 2024; ODNB [Henry Bathurst and Thomas Medwin] 5 July 2024; RLF file 1591 [Thomas Medwin]; Ernest J. Lovell, Captain Medwin [1962]; New Times 22 Dec. 1828; Northampton Mercury 19 Jan. 1833)
Other Names:
- Mrs. H. C. de Crespigny