Author: Stokes, Catharine
Biography:
STOKES, Catharine (fl 1818)
Her Poems, on Subjects, Religious, Moral, &c. (1818) was published by subscription at Salisbury, Wiltshire, but she is described as “of Damerham”—a village near Fordingbridge, Hampshire. It seems that Stokes was her married name. Internal evidence indicates that she was of a "lowly station" but had parents who could teach her to read and write; that she wrote her first poetry at the age of twelve and found writing a solace in itself; that she married a "rustic youth" when she was about twenty but that after marriage she began to suffer from constant pain, and he abandoned her; that having been ill for seven years she hopes by publishing to raise enough money to find "comfort in a humble vale" somewhere. She is most probably the Catherine Tiller who married Charles Stokes at Damerham on 14 June 1808; she had been baptised there on 26 Apr. 1785 at the age of 7 days, the daughter of James and Hannah Tiller. If her death was imminent in 1818, no record has been found of it (Catharine Stokes, Poems [1818]; ancestry.com 18 Dec. 2024; findmypast.com 18 Dec. 2024; information from AA)