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词条 Louisa Capper
释义

  1. Early life and writings

  2. Marriage and motherhood

  3. Rose Hill and later life

  4. References

{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2017}}{{Use British English|date=November 2017}}

Louisa Capper (1776–1840) was an English writer, philosopher and poet of the 19th century. She was the mother of two notable sons.

Early life and writings

Louisa Capper was born on 15 November 1776 at Fort St George, Madras, India. She was the youngest daughter of Mary (née Johnson{{sfn|Robinson|1887}}) and Colonel James Capper,{{sfn|Robinson|1887}}{{sfn|Perkins|2004}} an officer in the army of the East India Company, known as a writer and meteorologist. Her grandfather, Francis Capper, was a London barrister; her uncle of the same name was a Church of England clergyman.[1]

She is chiefly remembered for writing An Abridgment of Locke's Essay concerning the Human Understanding, published in 1811.{{sfn|Robinson|1887}}{{sfn|Perkins|2004}} Her Children's Stories however were a more profound contribution to the history of literature, marking a departure into a new populous genre in early Victorian readers. She was a pioneer of writing directly for children in a modern idiom.{{citation needed|date=December 2016}}

A Poetical History of England (1810) is also attributed to Capper, being a versed history of England from Roman times to the start of the House of Hanover in 1714.{{sfn|Perkins|2004}} It ran to a second edition in 1815.[2] Her history was republished in 2012 as A Poetical History of England; written for the use of the young ladies educated at Rothbury-House School, etc, by the British Library.{{sfn|Amazon|2011}}

Marriage and motherhood

Louisa Capper married, on 16 October 1811, the Reverend Robert Coningham.{{sfn|Perkins|2004}} His respect for her was such that on re-writing his will, he made her sole executrix and guardian. Much of his money came from slave sugar in St Vincent, where his uncle Walter Coningham had made a fortune at Colonarie Vale. Robert received a share of the money paid by the British government under the Slave Compensation Act 1837.[3]

She gave birth to at least two children, but only one lived to adulthood: William Coningham, the art collector and politician. Her first child, John, was born in 1812 or 1813, when she was 35, and died in infancy. William was born near Penzance in 1815. She took into her household the infant James Fitzjames, and raised him as a brother to her son; he achieved fame by volunteering for the doomed Arctic exploration known as the Franklin Expedition. Through a 2010 biography of Fitzjames, much of her life has become clearer.

Rose Hill and later life

Capper and her husband lived in Cornwall, then Watford, before settling in the 1820s at Rose Hill, Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire. They lived in quiet comfort, near enough to London to be in touch with cultural developments but in a pleasant country atmosphere. Rose Hill was a substantial household to run, of about 30 acres, with several indoor and outdoor servants.

The house itself, built in the 1820s, sat immediately above the Grand Junction Canal,[4] which had opened in 1800. The London and Birmingham Railway was constructed along the same valley during the 1830s, in the teeth of land-owners' opposition.[5] (See also the Modern history of Hertfordshire.) In the 1870s, Rose Hill was home to the civil engineer George Turnbull; it was demolished in 1952.[6]

The Rose Hill social circle consisted of extended family and travelling friends, as well as neighbours such as the Earl of Essex at Cassiobury House. Robert Coningham's widowed mother, born Elizabeth Campbell, lived with them. His cousins included John Sterling,[7] the writer and man of letters, and his brother Anthony Coningham Sterling, Army officer and historian. Louisa Capper's elder sister Marianne married Robert Clutterbuck, author of the county history of Hertford;{{sfn|Cooper|1887}} the two married sisters lived near one another for many years.

Louisa was responsible for a happy and well-run home. One of her visitors was Jane Carlyle, who describes Rose Hill as a sort of Eden: "a perfect Paradise of a place, peopled as every Paradise ought to be with Angels", filled with "cheerful countenances" only too happy to cater for her every happiness.[8]

Fitzjames's letters home refer to Louisa's and William's illnesses; she took her son to Cheltenham, Switzerland, and Boulogne in search of cures. She died on 25 May 1840 at Chorleywood and is buried at Rickmansworth, both in Hertfordshire.{{sfn|Robinson|1887}}{{sfn|Perkins|2004}}

References

1. ^{{cite DNB |wstitle=Capper, Francis |last=Robinson |first=Charles John}}
2. ^James Fitzjames: The Mystery Man of the Franklin Expedition.. Page 30
3. ^{{cite web|title=Rev. Robert Coningham, Profile & Legacies Summary|url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/26679|website=Legacies of British slave-ownership|publisher=UCL|accessdate=9 February 2016}}
4. ^Rosehill: {{Coord|51.698586|N|0.432844|W|scale:10000|display=inline}}
5. ^{{cite book|last=Birtchnell|first=Percy|title=A Short History of Berkhamsted|year=1960|chapter=Our Communications|isbn=9781871372007}}
6. ^{{cite book|last= Hastie|first= Scott|title= Abbots Langley—A Hertfordshire Village.|year= 1993|publisher= Abbots Langley Parish Council|location= Abbots Langley|isbn= 0-9520929-0-5|quote=Rosehill was built in the 1820's and demolished circa 1952. The house stood on Gallows Hill where the Gade View flats are today.<...>Between 1875 and 1887, the house was home to George Turnbull whose wife survived him and lived on there until 1899.}}
7. ^{{cite book|author1=Catherine Hall |author2=Keith McClelland |author3=Nick Draper |author4=Kate Donington |author5=Rachel Lang |title=Legacies of British Slave-ownership|date=2014|publisher=Cambridge|page=54|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mF03BAAAQBAJ&dq=%7CWalter+Coningham+St+Vincent&source=gbs_navlinks_s|accessdate=9 February 2016}}
8. ^Quoted in chapter 1 "Tracking down James Fitzjames". James Fitzjames: The Mystery Man of the Franklin Expedition by William Battersby. 2010.
Works cited
  • {{cite DNB|first=Charles John|last=Robinson|wstitle=Capper, James |volume=09|ref=harv}}
  • {{Cite ODNB|id=4599|title=Capper , Louisa (1776–1840)|author=Perkins, Mary Anne|year=2004}}
  • {{cite DNB|first=Thompson|last=Cooper|wstitle=Clutterbuck, Robert}}
  • {{cite web|title=A poetical history of England; written for the use of the young ladies educated at Rothbury-House School, etc.|date=2011|url=https://www.amazon.co.uk/poetical-history-England-educated-Rothbury-House/dp/1241038821 |website=Amazon}}
{{Authority control}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Capper, Louisa}}

15 : 1776 births|1840 deaths|English women philosophers|19th-century English poets|English women poets|English historians|Writers from Chennai|19th-century British women writers|19th-century British historians|18th-century British women writers|18th-century British writers|18th-century British historians|British people of colonial India|English women non-fiction writers|British women historians

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