Anna Laetitia Barbauld
ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD
1743-1825
Poet and writer
Lived and died here 1802-1825
(113 Stoke Newington Church Street)
“Life, we’ve long been together”
Born in 1743 in Leicestershire, Anna Laetitia Aikin received her education from her parents who were Presbyterian Dissenters and teachers. When she was a teenager the family moved to Warrington where Anna Laetitia had many close friends some of whom were considered to be the leading intellectuals in Britain, among them Joseph Priestly.
In 1774 she married Rochemont Barbauld and the couple travelled on the continent briefly teaching in various places, established a boarding school and adopted her nephew as their own son before moving to Stoke Newington in 1802.
Anna Barbauld drew heavily on her experience with Children in her writing, publishing several books on the education of small children. However, Anna’s published writing focussed primarily on political and social concerns, she felt strongly against slavery and in voicing her opinions on this and other issues both her and her husband received pubic criticism and threatening letters.
Unfortunately, the Barbaulds’ home life deteriorated as Rochemont Barbauld became mentally ill and six years later having gone insane he drowned himself in the New River. Anna wrote of her loss and grief in the poem Dirge and sought comfort in religious faith.
“Farewell! With honour, peace, and love,
Be thy dear memory blest!
Thou hast no tears for me to shed,
When I too am at rest.
The last of her works to be published was in 1812, after which she continued to write but did not attempt to publish any further works. Although work was published following her death in 1825, many of her unpublished manuscripts were unfortunately destroyed in the bombing of London in September 1940.
Anna Barbauld’s writing spans a wide range and in her lifetime she was admired for her genius and talent by, among others, William Wordsworth.
Page updated: 28 Feb 2007