Frances Maria Wilbraham (30 June 1815 – 26 June 1905) was a British novelist.

Biography

Frances Maria Wilbraham was born on 30 June 1815 at

Rode Hall Rode Hall, a Georgian architecture, Georgian English country house, country house, is the seat of the Baker Wilbraham baronets, Wilbraham family, members of the landed gentry in the parish of Odd Rode, Cheshire, England. The estate, with the o ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, the fifth daughter of Randle Wilbraham of Rode Hall, son of Richard Wilbraham-Bootle, and Sibylla Egerton. Her brother was General Sir

Richard Wilbraham General Sir Richard Wilbraham (12 April 1811 – 30 April 1900) was a British Army officer who became colonel of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment). Early life He was a son of Randle Bootle-Wilbraham (1773–1861) of Rode Hall and, ...

. During the 1866 cholera epidemic in

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

, Frances and

Emily Ayckbowm Emily Ayckbowm (1836–1900) was the founder and first mother superior of the Community of the Sisters of the Church. This Anglican order was founded in 1870. Life She was the daughter of Mary Ann(e) born Hutchinson and the Rev. Frederick Ayckbo ...

volunteered to run a hospital for cholera victims. Her work caused her to be dubbed the "

Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English Reform movement, social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during th ...

of Chester" by

Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster, (13 October 1825 – 22 December 1899), styled Viscount Belgrave between 1831 and 1845, Earl Grosvenor between 1845 and 1869, and known as The Marquess of Westminster between 1869 and 1874, was an ...

. Wilbraham wrote a number of works of

historical fiction Historical fiction is a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the Setting (narrative), setting of particular real past events, historical events. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literatur ...

. She also wrote numerous stories for ''

The Monthly Packet ''The Monthly Packet'' was an English magazine published between 1851 and 1899, founded by members of the Oxford Movement to counter Anglo-Catholic extremism. It was strongly influenced by its first editor, the novelist Charlotte Mary Yonge, with a ...

,'' edited by her friend Charlotte Yonge. Her recollections of the cholera epidemic were published as ''Streets and Lanes of a City'' (1871), initially under the name Amy Dutton. Frances Maria Wilbraham died on 26 June 1905 in Chester.

Bibliography

# ''For and Against: or, Queen Margaret's Badge. A Domestic Chronicle of the Fifteenth Century''. 2 vol. London: John W. Parker, 1858. # ''The Young Breton Volunteer: A Tale of 1851''. 1 vol. London: Mozley and Co., 1860. # ''The Cheshire Pilgrims: or, Sketches of Crusading Life in the Thirteenth Century''. 1 vol. London: John Morgan, 1862. # ''Not Clever, and Other Stories''. 1 vol. London: Groombridge, 1864. # ''Phil Thorndyke's adventures'', 1870s. # ''Streets and Lanes of a City'', 1871. # ''Hal the Barge Boy: A Sketch from Life'', 1883. # ''The sere and yellow leaf : thoughts and recollections for old and young,'' 1884. # ''What is Right, Comes Right''. 1 vol. London: Joseph Masters, 1884.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilbraham, Frances Created via preloaddraft 1815 births 1905 deaths British women writers People from Cheshire (before 1974) British women novelists 19th-century British novelists