Author: Sellon, Martha Ann
Biography:
SELLON, Martha Ann (1759-1833: ancestry.co.uk)
She was born on 4 Jan. 1759 and baptised on 21 Feb. at St. James’s, Clerkenwell, the daughter of the Rector of the church, the Rev. William Sellon (1730-90), and his wife Sarah Littlehales (1726-1801). They had three sons and five daughters. He had been educated at Westminster and Trinity, Cambridge, and in 1755 was appointed Rector of St. James’s, Clerkenwell Green, where he remained until his death. In ailing health, he purchased a farm at Pinner Wood and after his death his widow and several children lived there until her death in 1801. Martha Ann continued to live there with her unmarried sister Sophia and her brother Joseph. In old age she suffered from paralysis and moved to Brighton where she died, unmarried, on 18 Oct. 1833. She was buried in the family vault at St. James’s, leaving an estate of around £7000 to her brothers and sisters. She published The Caledonian Comet Elucidated (1811), a reply to John Taylor’s satire on Sir Walter Scott, and Individuality (1814), which contained lurid descriptions of the Spanish Inquisition. (ancestry.co.uk 19 Oct. 2020; CCEd; Nichols, Literary Anecdotes [1812-15] 8: 492, 9: 710; Sun 6 Aug. 1801, 23 Oct. 1833; Baker Peter Smith, Memoirs of the Rev. William Sellon [1852]) AA