Author: Lickbarrow, Isabella
Biography:
LICKBARROW, Isabella (1784-1847: ODNB)
She was born on 5 Nov. 1784 at Kendal, Westmoreland, the eldest daughter of James Lickbarrow, a teacher, and his wife Mary (Bristo). They were Quakers and she received a good education but her mother died when Lickbarrow was just five and her father when she was twenty. Her Poetical Effusions, which has an extensive list of subscribers including Wordsworth, Southey, and De Quincey, was issued to help alleviate her and her sisters’ poverty. She also contributed extensively to the Westmoreland Advertiser (1811-15) and other periodicals. For a time, she and her sisters, Rachel and Margaret, kept a school, but her sisters spent two years as patients in the Lancaster Lunatic Asylum (1820-22). The 1841 Census records the three women living with their paternal aunt, Margaret Lickbarrow, in Stromongate, Kendal. Isabella is identified as doing needlework, while Rachel is a stay maker and Margaret a glove maker. In 1844 they each inherited third shares in £900 by the will of their cousin, John Dalton, the scientist. She died at Underbarrow, Kendal, on 10 Feb. 1847 of a wasting disease (probably consumption), and was buried at the Castle Street burial ground in Kendal. (ODNB 30 Sept 2019; ancestry.co.uk 30 Sept 2019; 10 Aug. 2023) SR