Mary Maria Colling

-
MMC wrote at Tavistock, where she was employed as a domestic servant, in the earlier nineteenth century. Her poems were collected as Fables and other Pieces in Verse, her only published volume. Novelist Anna Eliza Bray encouraged her writing and made arrangements for the book's publication. In later years, MMC spent a short time in an asylum and died in relative obscurity at the age of forty-eight.
Stipple engraving of Mary Maria Colling by Thomas Anthony Dean after William Patten, published 1831. She is wearing a frilled cap that encloses her face, and a top with a high collar and long sleeves. Her dark, smooth hair is parted in the middle.

Milestones

20 August 1804

MMC , poet, was born at Tavistock in Devon, one of a large lower-class family.
Anna Eliza Bray told Robert Southey that MMC was born on this day in 1805; but the church record (although it gives her surname as Collins) is clear. It would not have been unlikely for MMC to be mistaken about her exact date of birth.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, pp. 1-85.
3, 5
“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, pp. 1-85.
3, 5

About 1825

MMC was inspired to pen her first poem—On Creation—after hearing the Rev. Edward Atkyns Bray preach a sermon on the power of God manifested in the creation of the world.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, pp. 1-85.
xvii, 9

4 March 1831

MMC , who was working inTavistock as a domestic servant, sent Anna Eliza Bray a parcel containing several of her poems.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, pp. 1-85.
2-3

By 26 November 1831

MMC published (by subscription, arranged by Anna Eliza Bray ) her first and only volume of poetry: Fables and other Pieces in Verse, with a portrait of the author.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
213 (1831): 762
Wright, W. H. Kearley. West-Country Poets: Their Lives and Works. Elliot Stock.
108

6 August 1853

MMC , poet, died in Tavistock from dropsy.
Wright, W. H. Kearley. West-Country Poets: Their Lives and Works. Elliot Stock.
108

Biography

Birth and Family

20 August 1804

MMC , poet, was born at Tavistock in Devon, one of a large lower-class family.
Anna Eliza Bray told Robert Southey that MMC was born on this day in 1805; but the church record (although it gives her surname as Collins) is clear. It would not have been unlikely for MMC to be mistaken about her exact date of birth.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, pp. 1-85.
3, 5
“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Bray, Anna Eliza, and Mary Maria Colling. “Letters to Robert Southey”. Fables and Other Pieces in Verse by M.M. Colling, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, pp. 1-85.
3, 5

Please click on login button to check your access and/or enter your credentials. Alternatively if you don’t have access, please click on “Subscribe”.

Log inSubscribe