Author: French, M. G. G.
Biography:
FRENCH, M. G. G. (fl 1824)
There is only one publication, a Swedenborgian tract that includes 20 pages of "Poems" by "M. G. G. French" with a separate half-title. (The title-page itself mysteriously includes the date 1788, possibly in reference to the establishment of the New Jerusalem Church in London.) Internal evidence indicates that the author was the "Mrs. French," whose improvisation on the theme of "Charity" for the Scottish poet Lady Nairne (1766-1845) is included with a headnote explaining the circumstances of its composition. Another poem celebrates the birthday of "my dear niece Miss M. E. Gregory." (Possibly the Margaret E. Gregory, born in 1810, who was buried as a nonconformist in Victoria Park Cemetery, Hackney, in 1855.) Mrs. French was clearly well connected and a warm advocate for Swedenborgianism: several poems praise Swedenborg and one laments the return of one of his works by someone who had borrowed but did not like it. These clues are confirmed by a single public record. She was Margery (or Marjory) Georgina Grace French, wife of Dr. J. French, who was baptised into the New Jerusalem Church at its Cross Street chapel in Holborn, London, on 29 Mar. 1801. She probably died in 1827, in which year there was a notice about her in the Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine p. 438--but that article has not been seen. A later issue of the magazine refers to her as "that most devoted of New Church women." (findmypast.com 16 Nov. 2021, 9 Jan. 2026; Intellectual Repository [1847], 118) HJ
Other Names:
- Mrs. G. G. French