Charlotte Richardson

Charlotte Richardson (1775-1825) was an English poet.

Life
She was born Charlotte Smith at York, under "most unfavourable" circumstances. When she was 12 she was admitted to the City Grey Coat Charity School, a trade school, but at 16 she left and went into domestic service. In 1802 she married a shoemaker named Richardson. However, he died just two months after the birth of their first child.

Richardson, in mourning, began writing poetry; and some of her poems found their way into the hands of a Mrs. Cappe. Cappe, impressed by the poems and finding their author both deserving and destitute, raised a subscription to print a volume of her poetry for her benefit. That volume, Poems Written on Different Occasions, was published in 1806; and with the proceeds Richardson opened a school.

When illness later forced Richardson to give up teaching, Mrs. Cappe again stepped in, and raised the amount by subscription to pay for a second volume of her verse, Poems Chiefly Composed Under the Pressure of Severe Illness.

Richardson also published two long poems that were published in her lifetime: "Harvest, A Poem" (published as Harvest, A Poem, in Two Parts; with Other Poetical Pieces in 1818); and Ludolph, or The Light of Nature, A Poem (published in 1823).

Richardson died in York in 1825, and was buried in St. Michael de Belfry, outside the city walls.

Writing
"The poems of Charlotte Richardson," wrote William Cartwright Newsam, "written as they were mostly on local, personal, or evanescent topics, are characterized by correct feeling, and in a remarkable degree, by propriety of diction."

Publications

 * Poems written on different occasions by Charlotte Richardson : to which is prefixed some account of the author, together with the reasons which have led to their publication. York, UK : Printed by T. Wilson and R. Spence, 1806; Philadelphia, PA: Printed and sold by Kimber, Conrad & Co., 1806..
 * Poems Chiefly Composed Under the Pressure of Severe Illness. York, UK: Printed by T. Wilson & Son, 1809.


 * Harvest, a poem, in two parts; with other poetical pieces. London: Printed for the author by William Thorne, 1818.