Author: Pettifer, Maria
Biography:
PETTIFER, Maria (1797-38: ancestry.co.uk)
She was baptised on 21 June 1801 at Lathbury, Buckinghamshire, the daughter of Robert and Sarah Pettifer. She had been born over four years earlier on 18 Jan. 1797. There may be several reasons for Robert Pettifer's giving her age as 37 at her death. Firstly, as an unmarried governess, she may have preferred it and used it. Secondly, they may have had religious reasons. Thirdly, he may have been the Robert Pettifer who married Sarah Curtis on 23 Feb. 1797 at Gayton, Northants. (Lathbury and Southam are about 17 miles south and west of Northampton, Gayton 6 miles south.) Robert Pettifer’s age at death in 1844 was given as 61; Sarah Pettifer’s as 69 in 1849. These ages also present obvious difficulties. At some point, possibly around 1820, the family moved to Southam, Warwickshire, where Robert Pettifer took up the post of schoolmaster at the National School, which he held for 22 years. Sarah, his wife, ran the Post Office. Maria and her younger sister Anne became governesses. On her mother’s death, Anne took over the Post Office. She is recorded in the Censuses 1841-1871, giving Tiffield or Gayton as her place of birth. Maria died of consumption on 21 Apr. 1838 at Southam. Her parents survived her. She published a small but original volume, Leisure Hours (1830) and kept a notebook from which a final poem on her impending death was published as "Last Thoughts of Maria Pettifer." (ancestry.co.uk 29 Aug. 2020; GM June 1838, 669; Northampton Mercury 5 May 1838, 2 June 1838, 10 Aug. 1844, 30 June 1849; Banbury Guardian 25 Apr. 1889) AA