Harriett Hesketh

Harriett Hesketh or Harriett Cowper (1733 – 5 January 1807) was an English letter writer, known for her correspondence with William Cowper.

Harriett Hesketh
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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