Author: Wingrove, Ann
Biography:
WINGROVE, Ann (c. 1745-1824: ancestry.co.uk)
One of eight children of Benjamin Wingrove and his second wife, Ann Pitman, she was probably born in Bath, where her father was a master baker and brewer, conducting business in Walcot Street. Two of Ann’s brothers also became brewers, the widow of one holding the lucrative position of “Mistress of the Pump Rooms.” However, increasing prosperity enabled members of the family to move from trade into the professional class, one brother becoming an army lieutenant, while, of her nephews, one, whom Wingrove appointed her executor, was a captain in the Royal Navy, and two became surveyors for the Bath Turnpike Roads. Nothing is known of Wingrove’s education or occupation, if any, although it is clear from her published works that she was well read. In 1794 she subscribed to a translation by Elizabeth Mary James from French of A Selection from the Annals of Virtue, of Madame Sillery, a work printed in Bath “for the author.” The following year Miss James reciprocated, ordering three copies of Wingrove’s Letters, Moral and Entertaining. This work attracted over 300 subscribers, a noteworthy number, suggesting Wingrove was embedded in an influential network that, while centred on Bath and the west country, also encompassed London and its environs. While most subscribed only one copy, a number ordered several, and two ordered twelve. Of these, one was Sir James Sanderson, lord mayor of London (1792-3), and the other was Mrs. James, proprietor of a ladies’ boarding school at Pucklechurch, near Bristol. Pupils in such a school were exactly the intended audience of Letters, written by “Honoria” to a young woman, “Delia,” on such subjects as “On reading novels,” “On justice and generosity,” “On humility,” “On solitude,” “On contentment,” and, finally, “On resignation.” Letters attracted admiring reviews in the leading journals, although the consensus was, in the words of The Monthly Review: “we cannot help expressing our wish that Miss W. had contented herself with writing prose since she never seems to fail so much as when she attempts poetry.” Taking this advice to heart, Wingrove’s subsequent publication, The Spinster’s Tale (1801), a three-volume novel incorporating the most Gothic of romances, eschewed poetry. Wingrove died at home in Pierrepoint Street, Bath, on 6 May 1824 and was buried in St Michael’s Church. (ancestry.co.uk 15 June 2023; Oxford Journal 26 Sept. 1795; MR July 1796; Bath Chronicle 6 May 1824) EC