Author: Hawke, Annabella Eliza Cassandra
Biography:
HAWKE, Annabella Eliza Cassandra (c. 1787-1818: ancestry.com)
She was born on 30 Aug. 1787 at the family’s town house in Portland Place, London, one of six children of Martin Bladen Hawke, 2nd Baron Hawke (1744-1805) and his wife Cassandra Turner (1746-1813). Her mother, a cousin of the mother of Jane Austen, published a novel, Julia de Gramont, in 1818; her brother Martin Bladen Edward Hawke (q.v.) also became a writer. She was given the education suited to a woman of her class, with an emphasis on modern languages, particularly Italian. Both The Jackdaw’s ‘At Home’ (published anonymously) and Babylon, a Poem (printed for private circulation) were included in her final collection in 1811. As she explained in the preface to that book, it was the encouraging notice of Babylon in the Critical Review that led her to publish again. The reviewer had commended the work of the “authoress,” attributed the poem to her by name, and compared it favourably to the Seatonian prize poems of Cambridge. She died at home in Chapel St., Grosvenor Place, London, after a long illness, on 21 Mar. 1818, “in the arms of” a devoted friend and companion since childhood, Miss Stacpoole, according to GM, and was buried on 30 Mar. at St. James, Piccadilly. (ancestry.com 7 Mar. 2022; findmypast 7 Mar. 2022; RPW; Kentish Gazette 31 Aug. 1787; Blain; GM Mar. 1818, 286)
Other Names:
- Hon. Annabella Hawke