Barbauld

Barbauld, Anna Laetitia, the daughter of the Rev. John Aikin, was born at Kibworth-Harcourt, Leicestershire in 1743, and in 1774 married the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, a Unitarian minister, having in the previous year published a volume of poems. With her husband she opened a school at Palgrave in Suffolk, and among their pupils were Lord Denman, Taylor of Norwich, Sir W. Gell, and others destined to future distinction. Here she wrote her Hymns in Prose for Children, In 1785 they moved to Hampstead, and Mrs. Barbauld assisted her brother in bringing out Evenings at Home. In 1802 the Barbaulds established themselves at Stoke Newington, where she composed her Selections from the Essayists, Life of Richardson, and her Collection of British Novelists, together with her last and longest poem, Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. Her husband died in 1808, but she survived until 1825, surrounded by many friends and intellectual admirers. Her works were edited, and her memoirs gracefully written by her niece, Lucy Aikin.