Mary Leadbeater

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Standard Name: Leadbeater, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Shakleton
Self-constructed Name: Mary Shackleton
Married Name: Mary Leadbeater
Used Form: Mary Shackleton Leadbeater
ML 's name is identified with that of the Quaker village of Ballitore in County Kildare, whose cultural historian she was throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Though this Irish author wrote poetry from youth to old age, she is best known as a life-writer (both of her family, her co-religionists and the poor of Ireland) and, increasingly, as a political commentator with links to Edmund Burke and Madame Roland . She based her autobiography on her own diary, and also published dialogues and short fiction (which, though didactic and moralistic, are also tactfully sympathetic), and edited writings by both her parents.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Smith
ES and her mother visited the Ladies of Llangollen (Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby ) en route to Ireland, and Elizabeth wrote a long letter to Bowdler on this subject, which unfortunately does...
Friends, Associates Melesina Trench
In England and (especially) Ireland her friends (with whom she kept up largely by correspondence) included a number of other amateur writers: Mary Leadbeater (from 1802), Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby (the Ladies of...
Friends, Associates Maria Edgeworth
In Edinburgh she met Professor Dugald Stewart , his wife Helen , and the writer Elizabeth Hamilton , with whom she developed a friendship continued by correspondence.
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon.
197-9
Another writer whom she befriended closer to home was Mary Leadbeater .
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Sewell
MS follows in the tradition of Hannah More 's Cheap Repository Tracts, and is perhaps also indebted to Mary Leadbeater 's Cottage Dialogues among the Irish Peasantry. Maria Edgeworth 's writing for children was also a significant influence.
Publishing Melesina Trench
MT sent a copy of this work (now very rare, like everything she published during her lifetime) to her friend Mary Leadbeater .
Leadbeater, Mary, and Mary Cunningham. The Annals of Ballitore, 1766-1824. Editor McKenna, John, Stephen Scroop.
102-3
Copies are owned by the Universities of Cambridge and Glasgow .
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
Residence Elizabeth Smith
Having considered but not chosen Ireland, the Smith family were still unsettled. Elizabeth wrote in September 1797 from Bath that they planned to settle somewhere in a cheap and romantic country. My Father says Ireland...
Textual Features Charlotte Yonge
This memorably begins, How can a pig pay the rent?
Khorana, Meena, and Judith Gero John, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 163. Gale Research.
163: 334
The interest in the place of a pig in the economy of poor village households recalls the work of Mary Leadbeater .
Textual Production Melesina Trench
The last extant letter that MT wrote was to the widower of Mary Leadbeater (the writer having died six months before).
Trench, Melesina. The Remains of the Late Mrs. Richard Trench. Editor Trench, Richard Chenevix, Parker and Bourn.
519
Textual Production Melesina Trench
MT was an inveterate letter-writer. Early in her married life she wrote a letter criticising the behaviour of some fashionable ladies, and delivered it on a visit for them to read.
Trench, Melesina. The Remains of the Late Mrs. Richard Trench. Editor Trench, Richard Chenevix, Parker and Bourn.
13ff
Some of her...
Textual Production Maria Edgeworth
ME provided a preface and notes for Mary Leadbeater 's Cottage Dialogues Among the Irish Peasantry, which appeared in 1811.
Butler, Marilyn. Maria Edgeworth: A Literary Biography. Clarendon.
239n3
While she worked on her contribution she developed great (if faintly self-mocking) enthusiasm...
Textual Production Alethea Lewis
AL 's surviving correspondence with George Crabbe is now British Library MS Egerton 3709A and Bodleian MS Autog. c. 9. The former also contains his correspondence with Mary Leadbeater .
Crabbe, George. Selected Letters and Journals. Editors Faulkner, Thomas C. and Rhonda L. Blair, Clarendon Press.
117, 194
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Melesina Trench
About the first twenty pages are occupied by MT 's early reminiscences, probably written not long after her first husband's death: she frankly recorded her emotional disturbance over that event.
Trench, Melesina. The Remains of the Late Mrs. Richard Trench. Editor Trench, Richard Chenevix, Parker and Bourn.
18
Later pages mix letters...

Timeline

15 December 1796: The French mounted a major, but abortive,...

National or international item

15 December 1796

The French mounted a major, but abortive, invasion attempt on Britain through Ireland: a large fleet left Brest heading for Bantry Bay on the Irish coast.

Texts

Leadbeater, Mary. Biographical Notices of Members of the Society of Friends. Harvey and Darton, 1823.
Leadbeater, Mary. Cottage Biography. C. Bentham, 1822.
Leadbeater, Mary et al. Cottage Biography. Stephen Scroop, 1987.
Leadbeater, Mary, and Maria Edgeworth. Cottage Dialogues among the Irish Peasantry. J. Johnson, 1813.
Leadbeater, Mary. Extracts and Original Anecdotes for the Improvement of Youth. Printed by R. M. Jackson, 1794.
Cunningham, Mary et al. “Introduction”. The Annals of Ballitore, 1766-1824, edited by John McKenna, Stephen Scroop, 1986, p. 5.
McKenna, John et al. “Introduction”. Cottage Biography, Stephen Scroop, 1987, pp. 5-6.
Shackleton, Richard et al. Memoirs and Letters of Richard and Elizabeth Shackleton. Editor Leadbeater, Mary, Harvey and Darton, 1822.
Leadbeater, Mary. Poems. M. Keene, 1808.
Leadbeater, Mary, and Elizabeth Carleton Shackleton. Tales for Cottagers. J. Cumming, 1814.
Leadbeater, Mary, and Mary Cunningham. The Annals of Ballitore, 1766-1824. Editor McKenna, John, Stephen Scroop, 1986.
Leadbeater, Mary. The Landlord’s Friend. J. Cumming, 1813.
Leadbeater, Mary. The Leadbeater Papers. The Annals of Ballitore. Bell and Daldy, 1862.