Author: Wilson, Susannah
Biography:
WILSON, Susannah (b 1787)
“Susannah Wilson, a Servant Girl” in all the advertisements, was discovered and brought to public attention by a friend of the family with which she was in service. That friend, “W. H.,” wrote an introduction to the book, including some basic biographical information and compliments on her simplicity and her piety. She is said to have been born in 1787 in Kingsland Rd., London, one of the daughters of a journeyman weaver. She grew up in a cottage he had built in Bethnal Green where they could enjoy a garden, and at least two daughters continued to live and work as weavers there even after the deaths of the parents in Dec. 1812 and Jan. 1814. Susannah instead went into service nearby in Hackney in order to have less sedentary work. She had learnt to read at Sunday School and to write at night school; in service she had access to books, and her poems are more accomplished than might be expected. The publisher, Darton and Harvey, paid the author £10 for her share of the copyright and promoted the book all over the country for at least two years. One of her poems was included in their children’s book, The Little Prattler, in 1815. (Watkins, noting the author’s “respectable talents,” says that the book was published by subscription but there is no subscription list in the copy examined.) Public records and some internal evidence make it possible to identify her parents as William and Judith (Wilson) Wilson, who were married at Stepney on 1 Mar. 1747. They had at least five children, two sons and three daughters. Susannah, baptised at St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, Hackney, on 2 Sept. 1787, was the youngest. Her fate after the publication of her only book is not clear. The census of 1841 does not include her under her birth name. She might have married (there are a few possible candidates), and might have left London. It seems more than likely, however, that she was the Susannah Wilson, aged 57 (sic), who died at Bethnal Green and was buried there on 27 Dec. 1846. (findmypast.com 1 Jul. 2024; Goodridge; Watkins, 393; Darton G589[1], G1050)