Author: Richardson, Catherine Eliza
Biography:
RICHARDSON, Catherine Eliza formerly SCOTT (1777-1853: ODNB)
Her first name was Catherine although it is often given as Caroline, including in SM and the BL catalogue. Born at Canobie, Dumfriesshire, she was the daughter of Phoebe (Dixon) and James Scott, a captain and Justice of the Peace. In 1799 she travelled to India and in April of the same year she married her cousin, Gilbert Geddes Richardson, in Madras. The couple had five children, the first of whom was born in 1800 at sea off the coast of Madagascar. Her novel, Adonia, written when she was nineteen, was published anonymously in London in 1801; it is dedicated to the Duchess of Buccleuch (her Poems was dedicated to a later Duchess of Buccleuch). Gilbert Richardson died in 1805 but she remained in India, returning to Dumfriesshire only in 1827. She contributed to the London Weekly Review (1827-29) where some of her poems were first published. She knew Thomas and Jane Carlyle; in a letter of 11 Aug. 1829 Carlyle described her as “really a good worthy woman; well bred and well intentioned” although he added that she “dwells in a habitation as of Bristol card, not of brick and mortar” and the Carlyles expressed doubts about the merits of her verse. A later collection of her poems, Grandmamma’s Sampler (1836), is dedicated to two of her grand-daughters. She died at Canobie and was buried in the churchyard there. (ODNB 1 Sept. 2020; ancestry.co.uk 1 Sept. 2020; https://carlyleletters.dukeupress.edu 1 Sept. 2020; SM)
Other Names:
- Mrs. G. G. Richardson
- Caroline E. Richardson