Author: HUGHES, Sarah
Biography:
HUGHES, Sarah, formerly RAYMENT (1748-1835: ancestry.co.uk)
The daughter of Robert and Mary Rayment, Sarah’s birth on 2 Sept. 1748 was recorded in the London Quaker birth registers where her father is identified as a tobacconist. The family may have been of Huguenot descent. She was born at home in Whitecross Street, St. Luke’s parish, London. She was not baptised until 21 Dec. 1776 in St. Luke’s church, Old Street; this may have been in preparation for her marriage to Hughes at about the same time but no records have been located. Publication of her Friendly Visits From the Muse in 1810 was made possible by the poet Richard Cumberland (q.v.) to whom she dedicated the book. She was also patronised by the Rev. Dr. George Gaskin, a lecturer at St. Mary’s, Islington, and many of her poems are religious. In Jan. 1820 Peter Hervé, founder of the National Benevolent Institution and brother of Charles Hervé (q.v.), wrote to the RLF on her behalf, stating that she had a second volume of poems ready for publication and giving her address as 7 Queen’s Head Lane, Lower Street, Islington; she was awarded £5. Her reply thanking the RLF for the donation records that the address on Lower Street was for almshouses. A letter of 18 Mar. 1820 establishes that Hughes’s husband (first name unknown) had died in an accident in 1780, leaving her with two young children and an income of just £10 per annum. Further appeals to the RLF netted £5 in 1827 and £10 in 1833. On 23 Mar. 1835 Hughes wrote to thank the Fund for £10, the final donation before her death in Oct. of that year. Hughes was buried in the cemetery at St. Mary’s, Islington, on 19 Oct. 1835. Her second volume of poems was never published. Although Hervé’s letter claimed that Friendly Visits From the Muse had met with praise in the reviews, the Poetical Register was harshly dismissive, saying that it could find “no evidence that she has ever received even a call from the Muse.” Her RLF file includes a poem, “The Love of Poesy.” (ancestry.co.uk 18 Mar. 2025; Poetical Register 8 [1814], 567; RLF file 408)