Author: Woodcock, Margaret
Biography:
WOODCOCK, Margaret, formerly STAUNTON (1778-1846: ancestry.co.uk)
She was probably born in 1778 but no record of her baptism has been traced. She was the younger of two daughters of Thomas Staunton (1751-80) of Sibton Park, Suffolk, an officer in the 13th regiment of foot, and his wife Mary Tinling. He was the only son of Thomas Staunton (1706-84), MP, and predeceased him in 1780. Although this resulted in most of the family wealth passing to daughters from her grandfather’s earlier marriage, Margaret and her elder sister Mary were well provided for. On her sister’s marriage to Richard Terrick Stainforth of Hutton Lodge, Yorkshire, she moved to live with them. Her own marriage settlement listed her estates in the Isle of Wight, Sibton and Yoxford in Suffolk, and Galway when she married the Rev. Henry Woodcock (1770-1840), at Hutton Ambo, Yorkshire, on 8 Jan. 1807. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1792, MA 1795, DD 1817), and was Rector of Michelmersh, Hants. (1800-40) and Prebendary of Salisbury (1818-40). They had two daughters, one of whom died in infancy in 1813. He died at Oxford on 8 Aug. 1840. She died on 15 Mar. 1846 at Woolston Lawn, Peartree, Southampton. Like many poets she had sent her work listed here to Sir Walter Scott, who must have commented on it favourably as she subsequently dedicated it to him “with unfeigned gratitude for his flattering opinion of its merits.” (ancestry.co.uk 16 Nov.2022; findmypast.co.uk 16 Nov. 2022; Morning Post 19 Jan. 1807; OUCH 15 Aug. 1840, 21 March 1846; GRO death cert; Copsey, 1: 548; Birmingham Archives, MS 3375; Memoir of the Life and Family of the Late Sir George Leonard Staunton [1823], 9-10, 144n.) AA
Other Names:
- Mrs. Henry Woodcock