Biographical Introduction

Summary

On 1 May 1885, the Manchester Guardian published the following obituary for Lady Hawkshaw, who had died the previous week at her London home:

Death of Lady Hawkshaw.—We much regret to announce the death, which took place on Wednesday evening, at her residence, Belgrave Mansions, Grosvenor Gardens, London, of Ann, wife of Sir John Hawkshaw, FR.S. Among many accomplished women who have made their home in Manchester during the past half century, none secured a deeper regard than the gifted lady whose death we now record. Lady Hawkshaw was the daughter of the Rev. James Jackson, of Green Hammerton, Yorkshire, where she was born in 1813 [sic]. Soon after her marriage (in 1835) her husband was appointed engineer to the Manchester and Bolton Canal and Railway, and subsequently to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway; and they took up their residence in the first instance in Sandy Lane, Pendleton; afterwards in Islington Square, Salford; and for some years at Broughton Lodge, Higher Broughton. It was during her fifteen to twenty years’ residence in Manchester that Mrs Hawkshaw gave to the world strong evidence of being possessed of the poetic gift. If we remember rightly, some of her earliest effusions appeared in the Manchester Guardian—a corner of which at that period was supplied by the muse of some of our best-known local poets. In 1842 appeared ‘Dionysius the Areopagite, with other Poems. By Ann Hawkshaw’. The little volume, which was issued by a firm of local publishers—Messrs.[…]