Lady Anne Dick or Anne Cunyngham or Anne Mackenzie (died 1741) was a Scottish noblewoman, poet and eccentric. Some of her lampoons and verses are said to have embarrassed her friends.
Background
Anne Mackenzie's grandfather was
George Mackenzie, 1st Earl of Cromartie
George Mackenzie, 1st Earl of Cromartie FRS (1630–1714), known as Sir George Mackenzie, 2nd Baronet from 1654 to 1685 and as the Viscount of Tarbat from 1685 to 1703, was a Scottish statesman.
Life
He was born at Innerteil, near Kinghorn, F ...
and her father was a Scottish judge,
Lord Royston. One of the earliest things known about her is that she married William Cunyngham, who came to notice when his mother's grandfather died in 1728. This brought wealth, and he and his wife took the surname ''Dick'',
[''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English'', eds Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy (London: Batsford, 1990), p. 290.] as Sir William Dick and Anne, Lady Dick.
[Jennett Humphreys, "Dick, Anne, Lady Dick (died 1741)", rev. David Turner, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004]
Retrieved 21 December 2014.
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The baronetcy had been created for Sir John Dick Bt (1719–1804) as the British Consul at Leghorn.
Consternation
Lady Anne and her maidservant caused consternation by appearing in public in Edinburgh dressed as boys. Her peers and friends were also said to have been embarrassed when she published lampoons and verses of a "coarse" nature, for which she was censured in the ''Dictionary of National Biography''.[Thomas George Stevenson, ''Four Books of Choice Old Scotish Ballads, 1823-1844'', 1828]
Retrieved Dec. 13, 2021.
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Death
Dick died childless in 1741 and her husband in 1746. The title passed to her brother-in-law, the physician Sir Alexander Dick,[ who moved into the family seat of ]Prestonfield House
Prestonfield House is a boutique hotel in Prestonfield, Edinburgh, Scotland. Originally built in 1687 by architect Sir William Bruce, it was once considered a wealthy rural estate, however in recent decades, it has come to serve as a hotel. ...
in Edinburgh.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dick, Anne
1741 deaths
Scottish women poets
18th-century Scottish poets
Writers from Edinburgh
Female-to-male cross-dressers
18th-century Scottish women writers