Mary Ann (Doyle) Harpur (1820 - 1899)

Born 18 Oct 1820 in Portland Head, NSW

Ancestors

Wife of Charles Harpur — married 2 Jul 1850 in Singleton, NSW

Descendants

Died 2 Jun 1899 at age 78 in Eurobodalla, NSW

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Biography

Mary Ann Doyle was the eldest daughter of Edmund Doyle, a free settler in the Hunter River district of NSW. When her grandfather died he left a legacy that was put into a new stone house which she, as the eldest was allowed to name. Since she was then reading Walter Scott's "Montrose" she named it Montrose Park. She had eight brothers and four sisters. Two of her sisters married their cousins. ^[1] She met the poet Charles Harpur around 1843, possibly at the tea-party arranged by the St John's Total Abstinence Society on 5 September 1843^[2] at the Temple of Concord, West Maitland. She features in several poems at this time some of which were published in Thoughts A series of Sonnets under the pseudonym "Rosa" as noted by Henry Parkes on the flyleaf of his personal copy^[3].

She eventually married Charles on 2 July 1850 at St Andrews Church, Singleton. It had been a long engagement and Mary had initially rejected him, which caused him much grief. No photograph of her is known, but her daughter describes her thus:

My father was always fond, and very proud of his wife. Although she was not a beautiful woman, she was very graceful and elegant looking. I believe he said of her— “that he never saw her in an ungraceful attitude;” “Even if she swept a room, she did it gracefully.” My mother was also most devoted to her husband. She kept his memory green, by speaking of him so often when we were children, growing up.^[4].

1. ↑ State Library NSW MLMSS 1327 Letter from Mary Araluen Harpur to Salier 13 June 1945.
2. ↑ The Maitland Mercury 20 September 1843 p.2b
3. ↑ W.A. Duncan, Sydney, 1845
4. ↑ State Library NSW MLMSS 1327 Letter from Mary Araluen Harpur to Salier 13 June 1945.

• NSW Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths, V18205441 1B
• Windsor and Richmond Gazette 17 June 1899, p6c
• Windsor and Richmond Gazette 28th July 1900, p.8a