Frances Parthenope Verney, Lady Verney (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Nightingale; 19 April 1819 - 12 May 1890), was an English writer and journalist.

Life

Parthenope was born in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, Italy, and was named after its Greek predecessor, '' Parthenope''. She was the oldest daughter and child of

William Nightingale William Edward Nightingale ( Shore; 15 February 1794 – 5 January 1874) was a noted English Unitarian and the father of Florence Nightingale, "the lady with the lamp". Biography William Nightingale (known also as W.E.N.) was born William Edw ...

and his wife, Frances Smith. After her parents' three-year tour in Italy, Parthenope and her sister

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

moved to

Embley Park Embley Park, in Wellow (near Romsey, Hampshire), was the family home of Florence Nightingale from 1825 until her death in 1910. It is also where Florence Nightingale claimed she had received her divine calling from God. It is now the location o ...

, their father's estate in Hampshire, England. Parthenope and her sister were educated at home by a governess, although their father later taught them Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian, history and philosophy. Despite being less scholarly than her sister, Parthenope was fluent in French and developed a love for literature and art. Although at first opposed to her sister becoming a nurse, Parthenope became an active supporter of Florence's work during the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

Marriage and career

On 24 June 1858, Parthenope married Harry Verney, 2nd Baronet, MP for

Buckingham Buckingham ( ) is a market town in north Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire, which had a population of 12,890 at the 2011 Census. The town lies approximately west of Central Milton Keynes, sou ...

, a supporter of liberal causes and possessor of the family seat,

Claydon House Claydon House is a English country house, country house in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England, near the village of Middle Claydon. It was built between 1757 and 1771 and is now owned by the National Trust for Places of Historic Interes ...

. After marriage, the new Lady Verney was able to develop her own talents independent of the shadow of her more famous sister; she soon turned Claydon House into a salon for interesting people, and was responsible for extensively remodelling and restoring Claydon House. She preserved and catalogued the family papers, and began scholarly research into the Verney family. She began writing stories and articles for ''

Fraser's Magazine ''Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country'' was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics. It was founded by Hugh Fraser and William Maginn in 1830 and loosely directe ...

'', ''

Cornhill Magazine ''The Cornhill Magazine'' (1860–1975) was a monthly Victorian magazine and literary journal named after the street address of the founding publisher Smith, Elder & Co. at 65 Cornhill in London.Laurel Brake and Marysa Demoor, ''Dictionar ...

'', and ''

Macmillan's Magazine ''Macmillan's Magazine'' was a monthly British magazine from 1859 to 1907 published by Alexander Macmillan (publisher), Alexander Macmillan. The magazine was a literary magazine, literary periodical that published fiction and non-fiction works fr ...

''. She also published five novels; ''Avenhoe'' (1867), ''Stone Edge'' (1868), ''Lettice Lisle'' (1870), ''Fernyhurst Court'' (1871), and ''Llanaly Reefs'' (1873), and a two-volume book, ''Peasant Properties and Other Selected Essays''. Much of her writing concerned social questions of the day, and ranged from essays on "class morality" to reporting on "the Miseries of War", social differences between the poor of other nations, and religion.

Later years

In later years, the two sisters lived near each other on South Street, London. Parthenope began suffering from arthritis in her thirties. By the 1880s, she was severely disabled and used assistants to transcribe her writings. She was frequently bedridden. (Bostridge). After a long illness with cancer, she died in May 1890 aged 71 at Claydon House. After her death, two collections of her works were published: ''Essays and Tales'' and ''The Grey Pool and Other Stories''. Her work on the

Verney family The Verney family purchased the manor of Middle Claydon in Buckinghamshire, England, in the 1460s and still resides there today at the manor house known as Claydon House. This family had been seated previously at Fleetmarston in Buckinghamshire ...

papers was completed and published by Margaret Verney as ''Memoirs of the Verney Family during the Seventeenth Century''.

References

External links

''In a Great Town Hospital''
F. P. Verney, ''Macmillan's Magazine'', Vol. L, May to Oct. 1884. pp. 14–22.
''Class Morality''
F. P. Verney (no attribution; signed "V."), ''The Saint Pauls Magazine'', Vol. 8, 1871. pp. 259–268.
''The Miseries of War: Notes from Sedan and Bazeilles''
F. P. Verney (attribution as "the author of Stone Edge"), ''The Saint Pauls Magazine'', Vol. 8, 1871. pp. 509–524. {{DEFAULTSORT:Verney, Frances Parthenope 1819 births 1890 deaths

Frances Frances is a French and English given name of Latin origin. In Latin the meaning of the name Frances is 'from France' or 'free one.' The male version of the name in English is Francis. The original Franciscus, meaning "Frenchman", comes from the ...

Florence Nightingale English women journalists 19th-century English women writers 19th-century British writers 19th-century Neapolitan people

Wives of baronets