Margaret Gatty

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MG was a popular and influential children's writer (of fiction and a famous periodical) and scientific writer in the mid-nineteenth century. She began by publishing a biography of her father. Apart from her writings she was also a serious scientist.
  • BirthName: Margaret Scott
  • Nickname: Meta
    She probably adopted this form of her Christian name in honour of Margaretta—or Meta—Klopstock , whose letters she had encountered through her admiration for the Klopstocks' translator, Elizabeth Smith .
    Ewing, Juliana Horatia. “Margaret Gatty, 1885”. A Celebration of Women Writers, edited by Mary Mark Ockerbloom.
    xiii

  • Married: Gatty
  • Indexed: Mrs. Alfred Gatty
Faded sepia head-and-shoulders photo of Margaret Gatty in profile. Her smooth hair is gathered at the nape of her neck and her eyes cast down. Her dress is dark, with lace at the collar and bust, and she wears drop earrings.

Milestones

3 June 1809

Margaret Scott (later MG ) was born at Burnham in Essex, the younger of the two daughters in her family.
“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2025, 22 vols. plus supplements.

1855

MG issued the first volume of Parables from Nature; four more appeared by 1871: a selection followed in 1872 and a collected edition was published posthumously.
Ewing, Juliana Horatia. “Margaret Gatty, 1885”. A Celebration of Women Writers, edited by Mary Mark Ockerbloom.
xiv
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

1872

MG published her two last books, in each of which she harks back to an early hobby: The Book of Sun-Dials (one of her best-known) and A Book of Emblems. With Interpretations thereof.
Ewing, Juliana Horatia. “Margaret Gatty, 1885”. A Celebration of Women Writers, edited by Mary Mark Ockerbloom.
xviii

4 October 1873

MG died in her sixties at Ecclesfield, after a long illness which produced paralysis and loss of speech.
Ewing, Juliana Horatia. “Margaret Gatty, 1885”. A Celebration of Women Writers, edited by Mary Mark Ockerbloom.
xix

Biography

Birth and Family

3 June 1809

Margaret Scott (later MG ) was born at Burnham in Essex, the younger of the two daughters in her family.
“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2025, 22 vols. plus supplements.

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