Author: Johnson, Mary Fitchett
Biography:
JOHNSON, Mary Fitchett, later Moncrieff (1779-1863: ancestry.co.uk)
She was baptised on 30 Sept. 1779 at Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight, the only daughter of John Johnson and his wife Elizabeth Smith. Her mother died in 1782 and her father then married Elizabeth Barry. He died in 1810 and left Mary land, buildings and a farm at Wroxall. Although she published Original Sonnets (1810) just three months after his death, she attempted to suppress it, possibly under the religious influences of the local clergy, Rev. John Barwis and Rev. Thomas Dalton, her “preceptor! second father! friend!” In 1814 she married George Moncrieff (1782-1822), a Scotsman whose family owned a neighbouring farm. He worked as a manager for the North British Fire Office in Edinburgh and she moved to Scotland. On his death, he left her his property in the Isle of Wight and Scotland. A daughter, Susan Georgina, had been baptised in Edinburgh in 1820. Mother and daughter lived together for the rest of their lives after George Moncrieff’s death. The daughter died in 1862 at Pitcaithly House, the Moncrieff family house. Mary Fitchett Johnson also died there, 1 Mar. 1863, aged 82, from “senile debility for years.” Although she never published again after her marriage, shortly before her death she gave her cousin Charles Roach Smith a poem, "A Dream of the Isle of Wight," “clothed in the primitive vernacular of my youth” with many dialect words. It was then published in the Gentleman's Magazine. (ancestry.co.uk 21 Jul. 2020; Scotland's People 21 Jul. 2020; Dunfermline Press 11 Mar. 1863; GM May 1863, 630-633) AA
Other Names:
- Mary F. Johnson