Dorothy Wordsworth – known as Dolly and Dorothy Mae Ann – was a writer, and sister, champion, and companion of poet William Wordsworth.
She was born in Cockermouth.
She spent much of her earlier years in Halifax, describing the town as
that dear place which I shall ever consider as my home
after being brought here by her mother's cousin – Elizabeth Threlkeld, her aunt Betsy – on her mother's death in 1778.
Elizabeth looked after her widowed brother-in-law and his five children above Ferguson's draper's shop near the Old Cock Inn in Southgate.
Dorothy was educated at a school run by the Misses Mellin at Blackwall, and at Hipperholme.
She became a close friend of Jane Pollard.
In 1786, she was recalled to Penrith by her grandparents, but she kept in touch with her relatives and friends in Halifax throughout her life and made occasional visits to the area. When Elizabeth married William Rawson of Mill House, Dorothy stayed with the family for a time in 1795, and returned to the area with her brother William and his family in 1807.
In 1816, she returned to Halifax alone for a stay of several months.
In 1817, after the slump caused by the Napoleonic Wars, she wrote
The country here is varied and beautiful, if it were not for the cotton and woollen mills, which are really now no more than encumbrances, trade being so bad. The wealthy keep their mills going chiefly for the value of employing workmen. Few get more than half work, great numbers none at all. A great part of the population is reduced to pauperism, a dreadfull evil
See Bullace Trees
Page Ref: MMW164
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