Catherine parr traill biography death

Catharine Parr Traill, née Strickland, pioneer writer, botanist (born 9 January in London, England;.

Jump to the biography. Source: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Not long after her birth in Kent, her father, Thomas Strickland, retired as manager of the Greenland Docks on the Thames and removed his family to Norwich in Norfolk , hoping to reduce his business involvements and to find a more congenial climate for his family and for the gout from which he suffered.

A man of wide intellectual interests, he also wished to undertake the education of his daughters of whom there were six by and to purchase an appropriate home for his growing family. From to , while he maintained a small residence in Norwich in conjunction with his new business interests, he rented Stowe House, a farm in Suffolk, near Bungay, overlooking the pastoral Waveney valley.

At Stowe House and later at Reydon Hall, an Elizabethan manor-house near Southwold on the Suffolk coast, which Thomas Strickland purchased in , the children were taught and stimulated by their father. He insisted that his daughters be schooled in such subjects as geography, history, and mathematics, all of which he oversaw; his wife took charge of their development in the traditional feminine skills.

At the same time he emphasized industry, observation, and self-reliance beyond the classroom. He encouraged the girls to make their own toys, raise their own pets, and tend their respective gardens. As they matured, he enjoyed involving them in arguments on contentious points, encouraging them to think through their responses. Such were his knowledge and bearing that his children customarily took his views as authority.

By the time Thomas Strickland purchased Reydon Hall he had fathered two sons and had reached the zenith in his social ambitions. Yet the effect on his health of the damp North Sea climate and the dilapidated state of the hall in combination with business pressures in Norwich kept him away from Reydon for extensive periods. The children were frequently thrown much upon their own resources and the older sisters, Elizabeth and Agnes who would later achieve considerable fame as biographers of British royalty along with Sara the only one of the six Strickland girls who did not write , were often put in charge of the younger five.

In May life at Reydon Hall changed dramatically. Thomas Strickland died, his estate significantly undermined by business reversals. His wife and children were thus left with scant means to maintain the hall and its grounds or to promote their social position.