Mary Thornewill, 1795-1828
Mary was born in 1795, the eldest of seven children (except for an elder brother who died aged eight) of her parents Francis and Sarah Dent, who were married in 1791 in Stapenhill, Burton-on-Trent.
She married William Bailey on ? in ?, and they had nine children.
Mary was a "lace-runner"; she lived in Sneinton, in Nottingham, and worked as a lace-runner in the city's burgeoning lace industry. A poor woman, she broke up the male monopoly in Nottingham working-class poetry, and gave a vital insight into the world of female labour at that time.
Mary’s is a unique female voice in the masculine world of nineteenth-century Nottingham working-class poetry. A ‘lace-runner’ whose sore eyes and tired fingers crafted intricately embroidered garments for ‘fine ladies’ as she raised her family of nine in conditions of poverty, she published thirteen poems in a pamphlet in 1826, two years before she died, in an attempt to raise money for her family. Often songlike in their rhythms, her verses reflect the struggle to survive and live in a decent way, in the face of hardship, and of such challenges as being told she had too many children (‘To a Lady who desired me to pray for the death of my youngest child’), trying to make her customers understand what it took to make fine lace and why they should pay fairly for it (‘Petition to the British Fair’), and tackling two middle-class girls seen tormenting an insect for their pleasure (‘The Locust’). Just two, extremely fragile copies of her original pamphlet are now known to have survived. The present publication, part of a wider recovery of the rich literary past of Nottingham, a UNESCO City of Literature, brings it back into the public domain after 200 years.
Her booklet "Poems of a Nottingham Lace-Runner" has been re-printed [paid for by Subscribers], and copies can be bought here.
Contents
To a Lady who visited the author
when she was in great distress 14
To a Lady who desired me to pray
for the death of youngest child 17
Petition to the British Fair 19
On the Death of the Revd. Dr. Wylde,
late of Nottingham 21
Lines, Written in July, on Widow
Hind's garden, at Hints, in
Staffordshire 26
Lines On the Death of a Gentleman
of Basford 31
The Author to Her Infant Twins 35
Appendix: Mary Bailey's Obituary 37
Index of titles and first lines 42
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[Work in Progess]
