Catherine Carswell
| Catherine Carswell | |
|---|---|
| Born |
27 March 1879 Glasgow, Scotland |
| Died | 19 March 1946 (aged 66) |
| Occupation | author, biographer, journalist |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Notable awards | Melrose Prize 1920 Open the Door! |
Catherine Roxburgh Carswell (née Macfarlane; 27 March 1879 – 18 February 1946) was a Scottish author, biographer and journalist, now known as one of the few women who took part in the Scottish Renaissance. Unlike her controversial biography of Scotland's literary hero Robert Burns, her earlier work, two novels set in Edwardian Glasgow, lived in the shadows until their republication by feminist publishing house Virago in 1987. Her work is now considered an integral part of Scottish women's writing of the early 20th century.
Carswell was born in Glasgow, the second of the four children of George and Mary Anne Macfarlane, God-fearing middle-class Free Church Glaswegians. She attended the New Park School for Girls in Glasgow. Catherine grew up in Garnethill where Glasgow School of art is situated. She attended evening classes at the art school where the painter Maurice Grieffenhagen was the director of the life class from 1906 and with whom she subsequently had an affair. In 1901 she enrolled for English literature classes at the University of Glasgow. Among her professors were Walter Raleigh and Adolphus A. Jack. Although considered a star pupil she could not, as a woman, be awarded a degree. She then spent two years of musical studies at the Frankfurt Hoch Conservatory, a period she drew upon when writing The Camomile. She returned to Glasgow intent on a future in the arts.
In September 1904 she met her first husband Herbert Jackson, a Second Boer War veteran and artist who suffered from paranoid delusions. She married him after a "whirlwind courtship" only a month later. Thinking that he was sterile he accused Carswell of betraying him upon the news of her pregnancy and threatened to kill her in March 1905. He was taken to a mental institution where he remained for the rest of his life, considered too dangerous to be discharged. He never met his daughter Diana who was born the following October and died in 1913.
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