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Author: Pilkington, Mary

Biography:

PILKINGTON, Mary, formerly HOPKINS (1761-1825: findmypast.co.uk)

She was baptised Mary Susanna on 6 Apr. 1761 at St. Michael’s, Cambridge, the daughter of Allen Hopkins, surgeon, and his wife Mary Thornhill. When her father died in 1773, an error in his will--or possibly fraud--deprived his widow and daughter of the inheritance, which went to his brother. She married John Pilkington, her father’s successor, at St. Clement Danes, London, on 6 July 1786. His practice failed and he became a naval surgeon (probably to escape creditors). She became a governess and later wrote educational works for children and didactic tales: A Mirror for the Female Sex (1798), Mentorial Tales (1802), Memoirs of Celebrated Female Characters (1804). She also produced at least ten novels and two volumes of poetry, Miscellaneous Poems (1796) and Original Poems (1811), the latter with a portrait. For more than ten years from 1798 she contributed to the Lady’s Monthly Museum under the signatures P., M.P., or Mrs. P. With the decline of her publishers’ fortunes and by then a widow, she applied to the RLF for assistance in 1810 and made several further applications until 1825, receiving generally small grants of £10-20. She continued to support her elderly mother until she died in 1817, aged 82. The ODNB erroneously reports that nothing more was heard of her until her death in 1839. In fact, she had been the governess for many years at Brook End, Hammersmith, of the children of Mrs. West, who was the daughter of Lady Cromie. She died at Grove Place in Nov. 1825, aged 65 years, and was buried at Saint Paul’s, Hammersmith, on 18 Nov. 1825. (ancestry.co.uk 26 Jul. 2020; findmypast.co.uk 26 Jul. 2020; Lady's Monthly Magazine Aug. 1812, 61-6; ODNB 26 Jul. 2020; RLF 1/256; Cambridge Chronicle 2 May 1817; Thomas Falkner, The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Hammersmith [1839] 162-164; EN2) AA

 

Other Names:

  • Mrs. J. Pilkington
  • Mrs. Pilkington
 

Books written (3):

London/ Cambridge: T. Cadell, Jr., and W. Davies/ J. Deighton and W. Lunn, 1796
2nd edn. London: Vernor and Hood, 1799
London/ Cambridge: for the author by Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe/ J. Deighton, 1811