Catherine Eliza Richardson
| Catherine Eliza Richardson | |
|---|---|
Portrait of Catherine Eliza Richardson
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| Born |
24 November 1777 Canonbie, Dumfriesshire, Scotland |
| Died | 9 October 1853 (aged 75) Canonbie, Dumfriesshire, Scotland |
| Occupation | Novelist and Poet |
Catherine Eliza Richardson (née Scott 24 November 1777 – 9 October 1853; often called Caroline Eliza Richardson, and published as Mrs. G. G. Richardson) was a Scottish author and poet who published a four-volume novel and three collections of verse.
Catherine Eliza Richardson was born in 1777 to Phoebe Scott (née Dixon) and James Scott, a landowner of considerable property and Justice of the peace in the Scottish borders village of Canonbie, Dumfriesshire. She is described being 'born into favourable circumstances' as one of a 'numerous family of brothers and sisters', of 'educated and intellectual' parents.
Her childhood was spent in the borders, but in 1799 she travelled to India, where on 29 April at Fort George, Madras she married her cousin Gilbert Geddes Richardson, a mariner, captain of an East Indiaman and partner in a , Colt, Baker, Hart & Co. Her connection with India is specified as her uncle, 'General, afterwards Lord Harris'.
She quickly had five children with Gilbert; he is recorded as having died on 30 August 1805. She returned from India to Canonbie to raise her young children, but moved to London during their teenage years, returning once more to Canonbie in 1821, where she remained until her death on 9 October 1853.
Richardson was an intimate of Thomas Carlyle, who in his Reminiscences remarks on her as 'poor and hospitable Mrs. Richardson, once a "novelist" of mark, much of a gentlewoman and loved by us both.'
Richardson's first-published work is thought to be the 1801 four-volume novel Adonia - A Desultory Story; her authorship rests on strong circumstantial evidence - the published volumes omits the author's name.
She published poems in a short-lived London Weekly Review (LWR) periodical edited by David Lester Richardson in the 1827-29 period, and he is supposed to have encouraged her to publish collections on her own account.Henry Colburn's The New Monthly Magazine, in a review of Poems, speculated that the two were related; David Richardson was an East India Company officer, on furlough to the UK during the LWR period.
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