Author: Rodgers, Vincentia
Biography:
RODGERS, Vincentia (b c. 1790)
No birth or baptism records have been found. A newspaper account of the “Ballynahatty Poetess” dated some fifty years after her death is the main source of information. She was the daughter of John Rodgers, a Presbyterian landowner at Edergole, near Ballynahatty, County Tyrone, in Ireland; he was descended through his mother from John Knox. Her mother was Jean or Jane Maxwell and her parents had married in Omagh, Tyrone, in 1774. Vincentia was born in 1790 or 1791. John Rodgers and many other members of the family were subscribers to her book; a number of Maxwells also subscribed. By the time of her death from breast cancer on 6 Feb. 1844, the Edergole estate had passed into other hands. One poem, not included in the 1823 collection and not traced, was said to be about Lady Flora Hastings (d 1839) and its sympathetic portrayal reportedly earned Rodgers an annuity from Lady Flora’s sister, the Marchioness of Bute. (Tyrone Constitution 20 Sept. 1895; Belfast Telegraph 30 Dec. 1958; Belfast Newsletter 20 Feb. 1844)
Other Names:
- Miss Vincentia Rodgers