Mary, Lady Dering (née Mary Harvey), (''bap.'' 3 September 1629 – 7 February 1704) was an English composer. The daughter of Daniel Harvey and Elizabeth Kynnersley, Mary Harvey was baptised in Croydon on 3 September 1629, and therefore probably born within a day or two of that. Daniel Harvey was a wealthy London merchant and member of the

Levant Company The Levant Company was an English chartered company formed in 1592. Elizabeth I of England approved its initial charter on 11 September 1592 when the Venice Company (1583) and the Turkey Company (1581) merged, because their charters had expired, ...

, his eldest brother being the anatomist

William Harvey William Harvey (1 April 1578 – 3 June 1657) was an English physician who made influential contributions in anatomy and physiology. He was the first known physician to describe completely, and in detail, the systemic circulation and proper ...

. Mary Harvey was sent to Mrs Salmon's school in Hackney, where her friends included Mary Aubrey (later her sister-in-law, and niece of

John Aubrey John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the ''Brief Lives'', his collection of short biographical pieces. He was a pioneer archaeologist, ...

) and

Katherine Philips Katherine or Catherine Philips (1 January 1631/2 – 22 June 1664), also known as "The Matchless Orinda", was an Anglo-Welsh royalist poet, translator, and woman of letters. She achieved renown as a translator of Pierre Corneille's '' Pompée'' ...

(''the Matchless Orinda''). In 1645, she married her cousin and father's former apprentice, William Hauke; this was without her father's consent, and it was quickly annulled. The man her father arranged for her to marry, and whom she did on 5 April 1648, was Sir Edward Dering. The marriage turned out well; the couple produced seventeen children (seven of whom died young), as well as poems and music. Despite bearing so many children, Dering outlived her husband by twenty years, dying in February 1704 (1705

New Style Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, this is the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 158 ...

); she also outlived her eldest son

Sir Edward Dering, 3rd Baronet Sir Edward Dering, 3rd Baronet (18 April 1650 – 15 October 1689) was an English Member of Parliament and baronet. He was the eldest son of Sir Edward Dering, 2nd Baronet of Surrenden Dering House in Pluckley, Kent and his wife Mary Harvey, a ...

. Dering studied music with

Henry Lawes Henry Lawes (1596 – 1662) was the leading English songwriter of the mid-17th century. He was elder brother of fellow composer William Lawes. Life Henry Lawes (baptised 5 January 1596 – 21 October 1662),Ian Spink, "Lawes, Henry," ''Grove Musi ...

. Lawes dedicated his ''Second book of airs'' to her, declaring that

I have consider’d, but could not find it lay in my power to offer this Book to any but to your Ladiship. Not only in regard of that honour and esteem you have for Musick, but because those Songs which fill this Book have receiv’d much lustre by your excellent performance of them; and (which I confesse I rejoice to speak of) some which I esteem the best of these Ayres, were of your own Composition, after your Noble Husband was pleased to give the Words. For (although your Ladiship resolv’d to keep it private) I beg leave to declare, for my own honour, that you are not only excellent for the time you spent in the practise of what I set, but are your self so good a Composer, that few of any sex have arriv’d to such perfection.

The only works of hers which survive are the three songs that Lawes published in this volume - incidentally, the first published music by a female composer in England.Kerr, 'Mary Harvey', 23 Dering was buried at

Pluckley Pluckley is a village and civil parish in the Ashford (borough), Ashford district of Kent, England. The civil parish includes the nucleated village, adjacent hamlet of Pluckley Thorne. Geography The landscape of the area itself is the edge of a ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, and has a memorial inscription in the church there.

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External links

*Dering's works o
IMSLP
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dering, Mary 1629 births 1704 deaths English classical composers British women classical composers English Baroque composers 17th-century English women Wives of baronets People from Croydon People from Pluckley

References

Further reading

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