Susannah Dobson

01 January 1739 - 30 September 1795

SD was a later eighteenth-century medieval scholar, translator, and populariser of historical knowledge.

BirthName: Susannah Dawson
In her printed signatures, Susanna is more frequent than Susannah, but the latter form is given in all reference sources.
Married: Dobson
She published both as Mrs Dobson and Mrs Susanna Dobson
Pseudonym: The Translator of the Life of Petrarch (S. D.)

Milestones

8 February 1775

SD dated the dedication of The Life of Petrarch to Soame Jenyns ; the book was published the same year.

Sade, Jacques François Paul Aldonce de. The Life of Petrarch. Translator Dobson, Susannah, James Buckland, 1775.

prelims

Probably later 1795

Historical Anecdotes of Heraldry and Chivalry was published at Worcester: an original work of scholarship, it may have been authored by SD , and if so it very likely appeared posthumously.

Dobson, Susannah. Historical Anecdotes of Heraldry and Chivalry. Holl and Brandish, 1795.

title-page

30 September 1795

SD died of consumption in Covent Garden, London, after a decade of widowhood, having scrupulously pre-paid her funeral expenses.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Ashfield, Andrew, and Isobel Grundy. Email: Notes on Susannah Dobson (1738-1795) and Jane Webb 1800-1858. 14 May 2019.

Biography

Birth and Family

Susannah Dawson (later Dobson) was born, probably in London; the date is not known, though she was said at her marriage to be a minor aged twenty and so born in 1738 or 1739.

Ashfield, Andrew, and Isobel Grundy. Email: Notes on Susannah Dobson (1738-1795) and Jane Webb 1800-1858. 14 May 2019.