Skip to main content

Author: Upton, Catherine

Biography:

UPTON, Catherine, formerly Creswell (1740/41-post 1798?: ancestry.co.uk)

She was baptised in Nottingham on 12 Jan. 1741, youngest of the eight children of Samuel Creswell (1701-75), printer and bookseller, and his wife Ann (née Hawkesly). Catherine may have been a governess in London before opening a boarding school, first in Bramcote,  near Nottingham, and then, c. 1771, with two of her sisters, in Manchester. On 20 May 1773 at Manchester cathedral Creswell married John Upton, who in 1778 joined a new regiment, the 72nd Foot (Royal Manchester Volunteers), and later sailed for Gibraltar, a British possession under siege from the Spanish and French. Catherine, who in 1774 had still been running her school, was present, with her children, John (b 1775) and Charlotte (possibly b 1779), on Gibraltar during the first year of the siege. She left on 27 May 1781 and later that year published The Siege of Gibraltar, a prose account of the final terrifying six weeks under siege, explaining that she wrote only to raise money to support her “little family.” In the Preface she declared, “it could not be discovered from my advertisements that it was the production of a female pen. I knew the ill-natured and ill-judging part of the world would freely condemn, though they had never seen it. ‘The Siege of Gibraltar by a Woman’ – Ridiculous!” However, she was credited as author of the extract published in the Ipswich Journal. In 1784, with her name firmly on the title page, describing herself as “Governess of the Ladies Academy No 43, Bartholomew Close,” Upton published Miscellaneous Pieces, again “with a view to support my children, not extend my fame.” Among the verse offerings are two poems celebrating the British success at Gibraltar, while the prose material includes her views on “Female Education.” Although John Upton lived until his death in 1815 as a half-pay officer in Turnham Green, west London, it is unclear if Catherine was co-habiting , or when or where she died. She may be the Mrs. Upton who, with Miss Upton, “From London (late of Manchester)” advertised in 1798 the opening of a  “boarding and day school for young ladies” in Manchester, claiming “twenty-five years’ experience in boarding school.” (ancestry.co.uk 21 Sept. 2023; Manchester Mercury 3 Jan. 1775 and 10 July 1798; Ipswich Journal 1 Sept. 1781; L. and A. Adkins, Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History [2017]) EC

 

Other Names:

  • Mrs. Upton
 

Books written (1):

London: the authoress, T. and G. Egerton, and G. Robinson, 1784