Author: Deverell, Mary
Biography:
DEVERELL, Mary (1731-1805: Orlando)
She was born at Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, and baptised on 14 Feb. 1731 at Holy Trinity, Minchinhampton, one of at least ten children and the third of seven daughters of Thomas Deverell (1699-1768), clothier, and Mary Heaven (1706-53), who had married in 1726. She was first identified as the daughter of a clothier in the European Magazine in Sept. 1782, which was later confirmed in 1807 by the poet and antiquary Thomas Dudley Fosbrooke (q.v.), who also stated that she was unmarried, although he gave her the courtesy title Mrs. Mary Deverell, which she sometimes used in her works. Her father died in 1767 and in 1769 she received an equal share of £500 with her sisters. In her Sermons, a collection of essays on piety, duties, and virtue, she describes herself as “of obscure and undistinguished rank” (compared to the Princess Royal to whom she dedicated the work). In 1776 she went to London. While there she published Miscellanies in Prose and Verse; Theodora and Didymus, a long epic poem; and Mary, Queen of Scots, a tragedy which was never performed. Hannah More, possibly feeling her own monopoly on piety infringed, termed her “parsoness and poetess” and on hearing her recite Theodora and Didymus declared her “mad as the Cumoean maid” (ODNB) but she seems to have moved with ease in London literary circles. Her sermons and poems are less interesting than some of her essays on female genius, marriage and the inconstancy of man, and the inhabitants of Bedlam. Failing to establish a literary career in London (although her volumes were well subscribed), she moved back to Nailsworth and lived with her unmarried sisters, Elizabeth and Ann (and probably Carolina and Hester). She died at Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, and was buried at Minchinhampton on 12 Sept. 1805. She never married. (Orlando 17 Dec. 2023; ODNB 17 Dec. 2023; ancestry.co.uk 17 Dec. 2023; EM Sept. 1782, 199; Thomas Dudley Fosbrooke, Abstracts of Records and Manuscripts of the County of Gloucester [1807], 1: 406; Bath Journal 23 Sept. 1805; Monthly Magazine Nov. 1805, 383; New Monthly Magazine Apr. 1816, 271; Gloucester Archives, Minchinhampton Marriage Allegations, GDR/Q3/40) AA
Other Names:
- Mrs. M. Deverell
- Mrs. Mary Deverell