Author: RIDDELL, Maria
Biography:
RIDDELL, Maria, formerly WOODLEY, later FLETCHER (1772-1808: ODNB)
Maria Banks Woodley was born on 4 Nov. 1772 and baptised a month later at St. George’s, Hanover Square, the daughter of William Woodley (1722-1793) and his wife Frances Payne (1738-1813). He owned a plantation in Antigua and was twice Governor of the Leeward Islands. She was an heiress from St. Kitts. Maria grew up and was educated in England but twice sailed to St. Kitts in 1788 and 1790. She later wrote up an account of her experiences, Voyages to the Madeira and Leeward Caribbean Islands (1792), which was well received. She married Walter Riddell (1764-1802), a half-pay army officer and plantation owner in Antigua, at Christ Church, St. Kitts, Leeward Islands, on 16 Sept. 1790 with a £6000 marriage settlement. His elder brother, Captain Robert Riddell (1755-1794) q.v., was an admired antiquary and early patron of Robert Burns (q.v.) and owned Friars Carse, Nithdale. They lived nearby at Woodley Park. Burns was a guest and wrote several love songs for her. At Christmas 1793, he made a drunken overture to her (or quite possibly to her sister-in-law Elizabeth at Friars Carse) which was declined and resulted in estrangement and the loss of his patron. They were reconciled in 1795 when she sent a conciliatory poem and on his death the following year, she wrote a much-admired character sketch of him. She edited a collection, The Metrical Miscellany (1802), which included some of her own verse, from her youthful "Inscription written on a Hermitage in one of the Islands of the West Indies" (1788) to more recent poems on Scottish scenery around Nithsdale. Unable to pay for Woodley Park, Walter Riddell went out to Antigua in 1796 to recoup his fortunes, was unsuccessful, and remained there until his death in 1802. With her husband abroad, Maria moved to London in 1797 where she mixed easily with literary celebrities such as Samuel Rogers and James Mackintosh. Friends probably secured the apartments at Hampton Court Palace she was granted in 1803. She was painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence in her early thirties. She married Colonel Philips Lloyd Fletcher (1782-1863), a Dragoons officer ten years her junior, on 23 Mar. 1808 at St. George’s, Bloomsbury. She died 15 Dec. 1808 at Chester. In her will, she left most of her wealth in trust to her daughter Anna Maria, who was not yet of age. (Another daughter, Sophia [1792-7], died in childhood.) She also instructed the sale of an estate at Barters, Antigua. (ODNB 4 Sept. 2020; robertburns.org/encyclopedia 4 Sept. 2020; LBS, "William Woodley"; GM Aug. 1793, 768; Public Ledger 2 Apr. 1813; Oxford University and City Herald 9 Apr. 1808; Globe 30 Dec. 1808) AA