Author: Richardson, Charlotte
Biography:
RICHARDSON, Charlotte, formerly SMITH (1775-1825: ODNB)
Not to be confused with Charlotte Smith, Charlotte Caroline Richardson or Catherine E. Richardson (qq.v.), Charlotte Smith was born in York. Her mother died in 1790 and her only brother a few years later, in a poorhouse; the names of the parents have not been discovered. Charlotte was educated for domestic service at the Grey Coat School, which she attended from about 1787 to 1791. In 1802 she married Robert Richardson, a shoemaker, in York. They had one child, but Richardson's husband died of consumption in 1804. The York philanthropist Catherine Cappe took notice of Richardson's talent and her difficult circumstances and arranged for a well-publicized subscription edition of her poems, with two editions in 1806 and then a second collection described as a second volume of the first (1809). Cappe's account of Richardson, published in GM and as an introduction to the poems, remains the primary source of biographical information about her. Richardson for a time kept a school but had to give it up on account of ill health. She died in Acomb, Yorks. (ODNB 29 Jul. 2020; findmypast.com 29 Jul. 2020)