Author: Cristall, Ann Batten
Biography:
CRISTALL, Ann Batten (1769-1848: ODNB)
Later known in the family as Nancy, Ann Batten Cristall was baptised at Penzance, Cornwall, on 7 Dec. 1769, the daughter of Alexander Cristall (c. 1721-1802), a Scottish-born mariner and block-maker, and his second wife Anne Elizabeth Batten (1745-1801). They had married on 29 Apr. 1767 at Madron, just outside of Penzance. Alexander, whose first name is sometimes incorrectly given as Joseph, had married his first wife, Margaret Gordon, in London on 18 Jan. 1754; their son John was baptised on 7 Apr. 1757 and Ann Batten Cristall was a witness at his wedding to Ann Barron on 22 Apr. 1793. Of her four other siblings, Ann’s elder brother, Joshua (bapt. 1768 in London), to whom she was close became a watercolour artist and he supplied the title page vignette for her Poetical Sketches. The family had moved to London by the time her sister, Elizabeth, was born in Oct. 1771 and they are also recorded as living in Rotherhithe, Surrey. Ann’s mother ensured that her daughters were educated and she fostered an appreciation for the arts among her children. At some time during the late 1780s Ann met Mary Wollstonecraft and her sister Everina (the connection may have been made through Joshua with whom Wollstonecraft corresponded). Poetical Sketches was published by Joseph Johnson, who also published works by Wollstonecraft, and the subscription list shows that Ann was accepted into a wide circle of intellectual and literary figures, including the Wollstonecrafts and poets Anna Letitia Barbauld, George Dyer, and Samuel Rogers. (qq.v.) Given such encouragement, it is surprising that she published no further poetry, not even a piece that Robert Southey (q.v.) had solicited for his Annual Anthology. Her mother died in 1801 and her father in 1802; Alexander’s will provided for his estate to be divided in two parts with one being shared equally between Ann and Elizabeth and one divided among his four sons. Elizabeth, like Ann, never married and became a teacher in Lewisham, Kent; Ann may have been living with her when she died in Lewisham on 9 Feb. 1848. She was buried at St. Mary the Virgin church, Lewisham; Elizabeth was later buried at the same church on her death in 1853. (ODNB 7 Feb. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 7 Feb. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 7 Feb. 2024) SR