Mary Howitt
- Writer
Mary Botham, daughter of Samuel Botham and Ann (née Wood), was born at Coleford, Gloucestershire, where her parents lived temporarily, while her father, a prosperous Quaker surveyor and former farmer of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, looked after some mining property. In 1796, aged 38, Samuel had married 32-year-old Ann, daughter of a Shrewsbury ribbon-weaver. They had four children: Anna, Mary, Emma and Charles. Their Queen Anne house is now called Howitt Place. Mary Botham was taught at home, read widely and began writing verse at a very early age.
On 16 April 1821 she married William Howitt and began a career of joint authorship with him. Her life was bound up with that of her husband; she was separated from him only during a period when he journeyed to Australia (1851-1854). She and her husband wrote over 180 books.
The Howitts lived initially in Heanor in Derbyshire, where William was a pharmacist. Not until 1823, when they were living in Nottingham, did William decide to give up his business with his brother Richard and concentrate with Mary on writing. Their literary productions at first consisted mainly of poetry and other contributions to annuals and periodicals. A selection appeared in 1827 as The Desolation of Eyam and other Poems like "The Spider and the Fly" (1829).
The couple mixed with many literary figures, including Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. On moving to Esher in 1837, Howitt began writing a long series of well-known tales for children, with signal success. In 1837 they toured Northern England and stayed with William and Dorothy Wordsworth. Their work was generally well regarded: in 1839 Queen Victoria gave George Byng a copy of Mary's Hymns and Fireside Verses.
William and Mary moved to London in 1843, and after a second move in 1844, counted Tennyson amongst their neighbours. In 1853 they moved to West Hill in Highgate close to Hillside, the home of their friends, the physician and sanitary reformer Thomas Southwood Smith and his partner, the artist Margaret and her sister Mary Gillies. Mary Howitt had some years earlier arranged that the children's writer Hans Christian Andersen would visit Hillside to see the haymaking during his trip to England in 1847.
On 16 April 1821 she married William Howitt and began a career of joint authorship with him. Her life was bound up with that of her husband; she was separated from him only during a period when he journeyed to Australia (1851-1854). She and her husband wrote over 180 books.
The Howitts lived initially in Heanor in Derbyshire, where William was a pharmacist. Not until 1823, when they were living in Nottingham, did William decide to give up his business with his brother Richard and concentrate with Mary on writing. Their literary productions at first consisted mainly of poetry and other contributions to annuals and periodicals. A selection appeared in 1827 as The Desolation of Eyam and other Poems like "The Spider and the Fly" (1829).
The couple mixed with many literary figures, including Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. On moving to Esher in 1837, Howitt began writing a long series of well-known tales for children, with signal success. In 1837 they toured Northern England and stayed with William and Dorothy Wordsworth. Their work was generally well regarded: in 1839 Queen Victoria gave George Byng a copy of Mary's Hymns and Fireside Verses.
William and Mary moved to London in 1843, and after a second move in 1844, counted Tennyson amongst their neighbours. In 1853 they moved to West Hill in Highgate close to Hillside, the home of their friends, the physician and sanitary reformer Thomas Southwood Smith and his partner, the artist Margaret and her sister Mary Gillies. Mary Howitt had some years earlier arranged that the children's writer Hans Christian Andersen would visit Hillside to see the haymaking during his trip to England in 1847.