Mary Whateley Darwall

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MWD is an interesting minor poet from the middle ranks in middle England, who against the odds succeeded in reaching a public, and embraced many styles and themes over a career which lasted from the mid eighteenth into the early nineteenth century.

Milestones

Early 1738
Mary Whateley (later MWD ) was born at Beoley in Worcestershire, the ninth and youngest child of her parents; seven children survived.
Messenger, Ann. Woman and Poet in the Eighteenth Century: The Life of Mary Whateley Darwall (1738-1825). AMS Press, 1999.
9, 11
21 June 1759
Mary Whateley (later Darwall) dated her earliest poem to be published: To my Garden.
Messenger, Ann. Woman and Poet in the Eighteenth Century: The Life of Mary Whateley Darwall (1738-1825). AMS Press, 1999.
19-22
May 1760-February 1762
Liberty, by Mary Whateley (later Darwall) appeared in at least five newspapers or magazines.
Messenger, Ann. Woman and Poet in the Eighteenth Century: The Life of Mary Whateley Darwall (1738-1825). AMS Press, 1999.
30
14 March 1801
MWD composed Lines in praise of her daughter Elizabeth 's travel journal: printed in the Monthly Magazine in June.
Messenger, Ann. Woman and Poet in the Eighteenth Century: The Life of Mary Whateley Darwall (1738-1825). AMS Press, 1999.
200-1
1810
MWD 's daughter Elizabeth published The Storm with Other Poems, including probably four by her mother.
Messenger, Ann. Woman and Poet in the Eighteenth Century: The Life of Mary Whateley Darwall (1738-1825). AMS Press, 1999.
199-200, 225
5 December 1825
MWD died at Walsall, where she had been living with a son's family.
Messenger, Ann. Woman and Poet in the Eighteenth Century: The Life of Mary Whateley Darwall (1738-1825). AMS Press, 1999.
209

Biography

Birth and Family

Early 1738
Mary Whateley (later MWD ) was born at Beoley in Worcestershire, the ninth and youngest child of her parents; seven children survived.
Messenger, Ann. Woman and Poet in the Eighteenth Century: The Life of Mary Whateley Darwall (1738-1825). AMS Press, 1999.
9, 11