Harriett Hesketh

Harriett Hesketh or Harriett Cowper (1733 – 5 January 1807) is known for her correspondence with William Cowper.

Harriett Hesketh
by Francis Coates[1]
Born1733
Died5 January 1807
Clifton
NationalityBritish subject

Life

Harriett Cowper was baptised in Hertingfordbury, Herefordshire on 12 July 1733. She was one of three daughters of Ashley Cowper.

She was a cousin of the poet William Cowper who had an unhappy romance with her sister Theodora. William had a long correspondence with Harriet, even though there was a 19-year gap where at Harriett's insistence they did not communicate. Harriett eventually broke the silence with a letter of congratulation to Cowper when his second book of poetry was published. This correspondence was the basis for Cowper's biography.[2]

After Cowper's death in 1800, Hesketh corresponded for the rest of her life with his cousin Dr John Johnson, with whom he had spent his final years.[3]

Hesketh died in Clifton in Bristol in 1807.

References
  1. Harriet Hesketh, Francis Coates, Bonhams
  2. James William Kelly, ‘Hesketh , Harriet, Lady Hesketh (bap. 1733, d. 1807)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 24 Jan 2015
  3. Catharine Bodham Johnson, Introduction to Letters of Lady Hesketh to the Rev. John Johnson LL.D. (1901), pp. 5–7


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