Mary Colling or Mary Maria Colling (20 August 1804– 6 August 1853) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

poet, domestic servant.

Biography

She was born Mary Maria Colling on 20 August 1804 to Edmund Colling and Anne, née Domville in

Tavistock Tavistock ( ) is an ancient stannary and market town within West Devon, England. It is situated on the River Tavy from which its name derives. At the 2011 census the three electoral wards (North, South and South West) had a population of 13,028 ...

, Devon. Her father was husbandman and assistant to the surveyor of the highways and she was baptised on 2 September 1804. She was educated locally from the age of ten, at a dame-school where she learned to read and write and do needlework. She got a position when she was fourteen as a lady's maid. She drew the attention of

Anna Eliza Bray Anna Eliza Bray (born Kempe, afterwards Stothard; 25 December 1790 – 21 January 1883) was an English historical novelist. She also wrote several works of non-fiction. Biography Anna Eliza Kempe was born in the parish of Newington, Surrey on ...

in 1831 and shared her poems, one inspired around 1825 by Rev. Edward Atkyns Bray on hearing him preach about "power of God manifested in the creation of the world". Bray assisted her in getting her work published and considered her a friend though the vast difference between their classes at the time prevented a closer relationship and when later publishing her letters Bray edited them to remove the specific reference to Colling as her friend though keeping in her admiration of her. Her only book of poems published was ''Fables and other Pieces in Verse'' which included the teaching of values and descriptions of rural life. Bray shared her discovery of this poet with

Robert Southey Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...

, poet laureate. Colling developed medical issues later and spent time in an asylum. She lived with her parents in Tavistock and died of dropsy aged only forty eight, on 6 August 1853.

References and sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colling, Mary 1804 births 1853 deaths Writers from Tavistock British women poets 19th-century British poets