Maria Webb (née Lamb; 6 August 1804 – 8 January 1873) was an Irish philanthropist, as well as a writer on religious and Quaker history. She was born to the

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

family of Dorothy née Wright and her husband Thomas Lamb at Peartree Hill, near

Lisburn Lisburn ( ; ) is a city in Northern Ireland. It is southwest of Belfast city centre, on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary between County Antrim and County Down. First laid out in the 17th century by English and Welsh settlers, with t ...

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

. She married William Webb on 21 August 1828, setting up home in Belfast where the couple had eleven children. Her philanthropic work starts with the creation of the Servants' Friend Society, a charitable organisation which exhorted servants, by offering rewards, to remain with their employers for the long-term. She was active in the Belfast Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, and was one of the founders in 1847 of the Belfast Ladies' Industrial National School for Girls. The Webb family relocated to Dublin in 1848 where in 1857 she published ''Annotations on Dr D'Aubigné's Sketch of the Early British Church'', which argued for the importance of the Irish in the development of the early church in the British Isles. She next published ''The Fells of Swarthmoor Hall and their friends...'' (1865) and ''The Penns and the Peningtons of the seventeenth century...'' (1867), both histories of the early years of the

Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

and personalities such as

Margaret Fell Margaret Fell or Margaret Fox ( Askew, formerly Fell; 1614 – 23 April 1702) was a founder and leading member of the Religious Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Prot ...

, Isaac Penington,

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quakers, Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonization of the Americas, British colonial era. An advocate of democracy and religi ...

, and

Thomas Ellwood Thomas Ellwood (October 1639 – 1 March 1714) was an English religious writer. He is remembered for his relationship with poet John Milton, and some of his writing has proved durable as well. Life Ellwood was born in the village of Crowell, Ox ...

. The

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from History of the British Isles, British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') ...

notes that both books were well-received and "showed the common tendency among mid-Victorian women historians to explore social, religious, and political history through the biography of an individual or a family history". Maria Webb died at Rathmines, Dublin.

Works

*
Annotations on Dr D'Aubigné's Sketch of the Early British Church
' (1857) *
The Fells of Swarthmoor Hall and their friends...
' (1865) *
The Penns and the Peningtons of the seventeenth century...
' (1867)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Webb, Maria 1804 births 1873 deaths Irish abolitionists Irish women writers 19th-century Irish writers 19th-century women writers