Author: Kentish, Mary
Biography:
KENTISH, Mary formerly KNOWLES (d 1841: RLF)
She was probably born in London but neither the year of her birth nor the names of her parents have been identified with any certainty. One of her poems indicates that she spent her childhood in London’s West End, and she married William Augustus Kentish (q.v.) at St Andrew’s Church, Holborn, in 1808. They had at least three sons (one of whom had died by the time the first edition of her Poems was published in 1819) and a two daughters. They travelled to Brazil in the 1810s; the title page of her Poems describes her as “Resident at St Salvador.” The family returned to England sometime in the 1820s but struggled financially; a failed promise of employment as an accountant with the Real del Monte Mining Company, meant that William fell back on writing for solicitors, managing tradesmen’s accounts, and teaching languages. Both Mary and William applied to the RLF for assistance. Mary applied in total eight times (1827-41) and was awarded £55; two of her applications were supported by Barbara Hofland, the prolific novelist. William applied in 1832 but was rejected on the grounds of insufficient evidence of authorship. Each letter is dated from a different London address and catalogues the family's extreme poverty and distress. In the 1830s they moved to Birmingham where William tried his hand at publishing a weekly political newspaper (his application to the RLF includes sample pages). In 1835 he was charged with violating the Newspaper Stamp Acts and imprisoned in Warwick (the charges were later withdrawn). Mary returned to London and sought employment as a teacher while continuing to write, producing illustrated juvenile tales and three novels—The Maid of the Village (1834), The Gipsy Family (1838), and The Gipsy Daughter (1839). One of her two surviving sons, William Henry, died of tuberculosis in 1836; her eldest daughter, Mary Augusta Henrietta, married in 1837 and died in 1839. Her final application to the RLF, dated from Hammersmith on 12 Feb. 1841, is followed by a letter from her son, Frederick Augustus, informing the committee of her death during the passage to New York where the family had hoped to secure employment. (ancestry.co.uk 4 Aug. 2020; findmypast 4 Aug. 2020; RLF file 598 & 720; Sessional Papers of the House of Lords 20 [1834-5]; contributions from AA)
Other Names:
- Mrs. Kentish