Mary Sharpe Douglas

(b. May 26, 1753, Bloomsbury Square, Camden, London – d. Feb. 20, 1807, Portland Place, Marylebone, London )

Gender: F

Mary Sharpe (1753-1807) was the daughter and heiress of Fane-William Sharpe (c.1729-1771), MP for Callington, Cornwall, and Mary Sharpe, née Newport, of Ednam House, Roxburghshire. In the early 1780s, she was travelling companion to Elizabeth Carter and a member of the Bluestocking circle. Hester Chapone commented on Mary Sharpe’s first marriage in 1782 to the much older Rev. Osmond Beauvoir (d. 1789), headmaster of the King’s School, Canterbury. He had been married before and had one son, Osmond, captain of the ship Prince Frederick, who died at Dover in 1780. Dr Beauvoir died in 1789, and two years later she married Andrew Douglas (1736-1806), whose first wife was Mary Carter, Elizabeth Carter’s sister. In the following year, the couple travelled to Italy and Switzerland in search of an environment that would improve Mary Douglas’s health. Their return trip through revolutionary France in 1796 is described in Notes of a Journey from Berne to England, through France (1797). After Carter’s death, she published a Sketch of the Character of Mrs Elizabeth Carter (Kelso, 1806).

Also known as:

Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe)
Mary Douglas (née Sharpe)

Please note that all dates and location information are provisional, initially taken from the library and archive catalogues. As our section editors continue to work through the material we will update our database and the changes will be reflected across the edition.

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